


Dodging the Heat

by Zephoria



Series: Dodging the Heat [1]
Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-05-20 07:49:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 55,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14890490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zephoria/pseuds/Zephoria
Summary: Laura Aston has worked hard to get where she is as a female driver and after 2 years in F1, she has finally managed to promote herself up the ranks and score a drive with Red Bull Racing, a team that can challenge for wins and potentially a championship. Too bad her new teammate seems to hate her, that her best friend is a fellow driver that she thinks she may be in love with and that really her life was nothing more than a complicated mess. But hey, everything will work out in the end, right?





	1. A Racing Start

**Author's Note:**

> I have never posted any my of non-slash work before, and while this one has been written some time ago, I decided to still share it in case there is anyone that may enjoy this :)
> 
> Also as this is years old, there are names of drivers and team personnel that is no longer current, but haven't really updated because it brought back some nostalgia for me when I was editing and posting so decided to leave it. Hope you don't mind.
> 
> Lastly, this follows no sense of reality in regards to current teams, current driver line ups, past or current wins, it's all made up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been betaed by the lovely @formulaoneisfast

 

Laura Aston would be his teammate. And as he stood next to her for obligatory team photos, Sebastian Vettel wasn’t sure how he felt about that. She’d been in Formula 1 for two years previously and had driven for Sauber and while he would begrudgingly admit she did a decent job for the last two years, it wouldn’t sway his opinion that he didn’t think women should be in motorsport, or at least F1.

He’d been surprised when Christian Horner had announced that Aston would partner him for the current season, he’d been expecting Buemi to be promoted up the ranks, and he wondered how the guy must feel having a woman promoted over him, and not even from the Red Bull ranks. Sebastian was definitely not going to be beaten by a girl that was for certain.

The two of them move to new positions, the flashing of the camera’s halting for one moment as they’re passed their helmets and he uses the brief opportunity to cast a quick glance at Aston. Dark blonde hair that had been short when she started but she had now grown out and hung well past her shoulders. He preferred it long, not that he would ever offer his opinion to her. She had the greenest eyes, and dimples when she smiled which he thought secretly were kind of cute.

And that was the problem for Sebastian; he liked her but didn’t respect her. For him, Laura Aston was a cause of conflicting emotions and had been before the current year. And now they were teammates and while he had no idea how the year would play out between them he was fairly certain that this year would not be as hard as the last three he spent with Mark Webber.

 

*          *        *

 

Laura stood at the back of Red Bull pits her face set in a deep frown, her arms folded as she watched her teammate take the new car around the track. It was testing and Sebastian had been granted the drive, not her. But she understood the reasons for that, what was eating at her was the fact that she couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was some feeling of coldness between her teammate and herself.

Coming from a team where she’d had a rather close relationship with her previous teammate, in truth she got on well with just about everyone in the paddock, she didn’t understand why Sebastian Vettel would barely utter two words to her. It wasn’t like he was the silent type; the man had a mouth.

She was contemplating how much she should push him. It wasn’t a secret that Sebastian and she had never been close, and she did have a sneaky suspicion that he didn’t like her very much if their lack of contact since she’d been in F1 was any indication. It was just that Laura had been fully under the belief that when they actually started working together things would be different. After all, what was there not to like about her? So, she held a high opinion of herself, she would never be convinced that was a bad thing.

Sebastian returns to the pits and Laura straightens up as the car is pushed back. Sebastian seems quite pleased when he steps out of the car and removes his helmet. At least he doesn’t exclude her from the feedback he gives to the team, not that she thought it was much consolation. And soon the frown that had left her face returns as she goes back to brooding over what she was sure was going to be a hard season if things continued this path.

 

*          *        *

 

Jenson was currently only paying half attention to his teammate Lewis who was babbling on about something that happened in LA with his girlfriend over the weekend when something more exciting sparked his attention – Laura Aston was bounding her way towards the two McLaren drivers. It was the first race of the season and it seemed like nothing had changed, McLaren had always been Laura’s first port of call for a race weekend.

Lewis having turned to see what had caught Jenson’s eye shoots him an amused smirk. Ignoring it, Jenson pushes a chair out for Laura with his foot which she drops into after giving both a brief hug.

“I thought you were banned from here?” Lewis greets with raised eyebrows.

Laura falters and looks around cautiously, “Are you going to tell Martin I’m here?”

Jenson immediately jumps to her defence, “I think we should just forget _the incident_ ,” he says firmly. It was how it had been referred to and rarely mentioned, all three of them preferring to pretend it hadn’t happened.

“Can we _not_ mention it,” Laura says her face going bright red making both laugh, though Lewis would deny it his cheeks burned as hers did, but it’s only Jenson who gets punched in the arm, hard. “It was all your fault,” she mutters.

“So, how’s Red Bull?” Jenson changes the subject.

“What did you get up to on the off season?” Lewis asks at the same time.

“Nothing exciting,” Laura shrugs but shoots Jenson a knowing smile that makes him grin back in return and Lewis leans forward suspiciously.

“Did you two to do something?” His finger flicks between the pair and only Jenson manages to straighten his face.

“We did catch up,” Laura answers after a moment of hesitation and then immediately adding, “And it’s not what you are thinking.”

Lewis rolls his eyes and gets to his feet. “Honestly, the pair of you is like watching one of those shows that revolve around ‘will they or won’t they’. It’s incredibly frustrating.” Grabbing his water bottle he bids them both farewell having a scheduled appointment and honestly not being interested in what would most likely be another long season of some frustrating game his two friends played.

Both of them watch Lewis’s retreating back pondering his words, before Jenson’s gaze returns to Aston. He had always liked Aston and their friendship had grown into something more than that but neither he nor Laura had pushed it into anything else. Though there were times he thought about it and times he wondered if his feelings for her were risking the close relationship they had now.

“Anyway, Red Bull is okay,” she smiles tightly answering the question from earlier.

“Yes, because you’re beaming with excitement,” Jenson replies sarcastically.

“It is good,” she assures him. “I like the team and I’m pleased I’m there.”

“So… what is the problem then?”

Leaning forward across the table she asks in a quiet voice, “Why does Sebastian Vettel hate me?”

“Because he has the chance of getting his ass kicked by a girl this year,” Jenson replies simply. “Just like you did to Kamui last year.”

“So, he doesn’t like being beaten, that’s no reason to hate me. You don’t hate me.”

“You can’t be liked by everyone,” Jenson states as she sighs heavily. “Don’t pout, beat him and give him a real reason to be pissed at you.”

“If we were teammates would you be annoyed if I beat you?”

Jenson grins once more, “Aston honey, you wouldn’t beat me.”

“Would too,” she mutters.

“Well maybe one day we’ll get the chance…”

She smiles a little. “Maybe…You’d think I’d be a shoo-in for a seat at McLaren.” She hoped _the incident_ won’t affect future prospects.

Jenson laughs. Laura having spent so much time at McLaren and with its drivers, often saw her be referred to as McLaren’s reserved driver but there were currently no spare seats, at least for the current season and it had been the reason she had signed with Red Bull.

And before Jenson could say another word, Laura was on her feet and heading towards the exit in a hurried pace. Turning Jenson looks to find the reason for her hasty exit and then is once more grinning when he sees his team principal heading in, looking more than a little ticked off, and even embarrassed as Laura brushes past him. His smile though is immediately gone when Martin’s gaze falls on him and Jenson himself jumps to his feet to avoid a lecture. Everyone may be trying to forget _the incident_ from last season’s final race, but it wasn’t that easy, Jenson was sure it was all seared into his brain unfortunately.

 

*          *        *

 

Laura makes her way towards the RBR energy station and where her brother seemed to be having a meaningful conversation with Fernando Alonso just outside. She frowns; she was not a fan of Alonso. They were always civil to each other, but truth be told, he fell into the Vettel boat – he didn’t think she belonged in F1 anymore than her teammate.

But that wasn’t the sole fact that was the driving force behind her dislike for the Ferrari man. Lillian had confessed in her first season that she had had a brief fling with the then Renault driver. Her sister seemed to pick the most unsuitable men to have a relationship with. But Fernando had strung her sister along, married as he was before breaking her heart. She’d punished him for that, shunting him out of a race but she tried to forget that small fact – it was the only regret she had in her two years in the sport.

“Aston,” Alonso greets when she joins them.

“Hey,” She responds tightly. She was relieved from the effort of a conversation when Sebastian appears, and he and Fernando are then laughing about something. Turning she looks at her brother as they make their way inside the RBR Energy Station.

“Excited?” Miles asks noting that Laura seemed tightly wound.

“I wish it was Sunday,” she answers stretching in the hope it would ease the fact she felt tense. “I just want to race; it feels like forever since the last race.”

Miles laughs and slings his arm around her neck. “Soon,” he promises. “Just concentrate on your PR activities.”

She nods trying not to screw her face up. PR activities had lost its shine over the past two years. She didn’t want to smile and do endless interviews, she wanted to race. But apparently it is part and parcel of racing. Sighing she goes to find RBR’s press officer to grab her schedule for the day. Maybe it would be empty?

 

*          *        *

 

In the evening on the Thursday, Laura was walking with Jenson on her way to an interview being held in front of fans with her teammate. But she wasn’t really focused on that right now; instead, she was aware of the fact that she and Jenson were so close she could feel the heat coming off him.

She was very aware that there were rumours constantly about her and Jenson, but the truth was that they were simply friends, no matter how badly anyone wanted to believe otherwise. But right now, she didn’t care that there were photographers in close proximity the urge to feel skin became too great.

Jenson in the middle of telling her how he’d managed to take all of Lewis’s socks stops when he feels her hand brush the back of his, her arm pressing hard into his. For a moment, all thoughts flew from his head as he fought to actually grab her hand.

And then far too quickly their brief walk comes to end. Jenson moves away, and Laura immediately misses the warmth. “Enjoy,” Jenson says touching her back lightly as he gives a quick smile to Sebastian who’d been watching them with interest.

“You’re late.” Molly tells her, and Laura tears her eyes from Jenson’s retreating form. Molly was Sebastian’s PR officer so she’s not sure why she was being given the dirty, but maybe Sebastian just had all his team hate on her.

“Sorry?” Laura asks turning back to face them, too aware that Sebastian had this amused look on his face. She didn’t like it. But before she can even come up with a snappish comment she and Sebastian are being called onto the stage and her ‘thoughtful’ teammate waves her in front of him.

There were two high stools on the small stage and walking out she looked at the crowd who were shouting. She waves at them making her way to one of the chairs and jumps up as Sebastian joins her, putting his water bottle at his feet.

It’s a pretty standard interview but Laura itched for it to be over. Her mind was completely on a certain McLaren driver, not all sure how she felt that each season her relationship with Jenson seemed to tighten up a notch. She does though focus when it comes to fan questions; they always tended to be more interesting.

Sebastian is given the first one. “Are you afraid of being beaten by a girl this year?”

Laura grins at that and looks at Vettel wondering if Jenson was the one that asked.

“I won’t be beaten by Aston,” he responds firmly, and Laura raises her eyebrows at him.

“You should ask him after the race on Sunday,” she tells the guy that asked the question and there’s a laugh that goes through the crowd.

“I have a question for Aston. Is it true when you were ten that you won a state gymnastic championship and if so can you do a back flip?”

She grins at that. “Actually, I didn’t win that. I was runner up,” she answers honestly. “I had one of those mothers that wanted their daughter to do anything other than something considered for boys. I was much better at racing than I ever was at gymnastics.”

Sebastian looks amused, “Can you do the back flip?”

Looking at the length of stage Laura considers it. “I haven’t done one in a while…” But she still jumps to her feet much to the delight of the crowd and she moves her chair. “Okay,” she says tucking her team shirt into her jeans, so she doesn’t flash anyone.

Backing up she regretted the choice to do this and she could see Molly standing at the back out of sight shaking her head furiously. She grins at her and then runs across the stage doing a cartwheel and finishing up with a back flip that she nearly doesn’t land. But the crowd roars anyway, and she jumps up back to her feet and does a little bow. She goes back to grab her microphone off the interviewer who was applauding along with the crowd.

“I give it a six,” Sebastian comments as Laura sits back down.

“Let’s see yours?”

For a moment there’s a wild cheer when Sebastian jumps to his feet and puts his microphone down. He makes a show about going to do one, pacing the stage, tucking his shirt in like Aston had done and making several false starts before he shakes his head and sits back down grinning. “I think I’ll stick to the racing.”

The interview wraps up from that point and Laura and Sebastian wave to the crowd before departing, both untucking their shirts as they return to Molly.

Molly looks exasperated, “You could have injured yourself!”

“Nah,” Laura answers. “It’s like riding a bike, you don’t forget.” The answer though does nothing to diminish Molly’s anger and frustration before she stalks away. Laura wondered if she was off to ‘dob’. She shrugs off the thought as she and Sebastian walk back to RBR together.

They don’t exchange a word and go their separate ways once inside. Sebastian goes to join Rocky and Laura goes to find her brother, ready to head off. At least tomorrow she’ll get a chance to drive. As they head out of paddock she smiles at Jenson who gives her a small wave and her mind is once more back on him.

She chews her lip wishing she could talk to Lillian. Too bad her sister was currently shunning her for firing her at the end of last season as her PR Rep. It wasn’t like she had friends bursting out of the seams; she had her brother and sister, and Jenson. She trusted all three implicitly, it was just only one of them would she talk to her about men and relationships.

 

*          *        *

 

Sebastian knew that practice sessions were not meant to be used as shootouts. There were plans and programs for both of the team’s drivers to follow, but he couldn’t help himself. After their first runs in the first practice he found himself more than just a little ticked off that she was faster, even if he did have more fuel onboard.

Standing next to Rocky with his arms crossed he silently seethes as he stares at Aston, who was sitting in the car chatting to her own engineer. He wanted to go back out and get the four tenths he was down back. He didn’t want her faster in any session no matter what circumstances.

At the end of the first practice he couldn’t help but feel smug when the last time that was set saw him at the top of the times. That was how it should be. When he looked at Aston his eyes met hers and she looked annoyed and he just smiled and folded his arms.

It led to all the practice sessions become a contest, each wanting the competitive edge of the other. Sebastian found himself on the top of the times in the second practice while Aston silently fumed.

At the briefing he listened amused as Aston fought the decision to at least consider his own setup. She was determined to do things her own way even if they were wrong. That was a poor decision and even when he offered her his data, interrupting their conversation she looked like she might snap at him. He in response just flashed her a helpful smile.

“I don’t need Vettel’s help,” she forces out. “The car is fine; I’ll make up the time tomorrow.”

Sebastian watches as she stalks out as he opens his water bottle. He was faster; he’d easily beat her in qualifying. He didn’t have anything to worry about. He thinks he’d over estimated her ability; there hadn’t been a need to be so fearful. Today was a good day he thinks.

 

*          *        *

 

On Saturday Laura walks into the paddock with her brother and goes straight past McLaren. She didn’t feel like goofing off this morning. It was the first time ever in her career she felt like she might not be the best. She wasn’t going to be beaten by someone who seemed desperate to prove a point.

Teammates worked together, that was how she knew it in the past. And while she and Sebastian were sharing each other’s data, the desire to beat the other meant she was determined to do everything on her own. She hadn’t needed anyone’s help in the past and she didn’t need Vettel to get a perfect setup. She was better than that.

She jogs up the few steps and heads into the RBR motorhome. Miles says something about getting coffee and she stops and speaks with the team before she makes her way to the briefing room which was empty. She sits down, throwing her backpack on the table before pulling out her data from yesterday’s practice sessions.

“Are you studying?”

Laura doesn’t even look up at her brother; he could mock her when she wasn’t busy. There had to be a reason why she was losing time. She hears Miles leave and she’s granted peace till the final practice session.

And it’s there she begins to claw back the time Sebastian had over her. She could tell the car wasn’t perfect, and after making tweaks she could feel it was more balanced and in turn she braked later into the turns she knew Vettel did and her times plummeted.

Even though she still finished behind him there was now less than a tenth between them. She felt much better about qualifying and pulling herself out of the car she can see Vettel staring at her and the smug expression he wore yesterday was gone. Good.

She rips off her helmet, now looking forward to qualifying as she shrugs out of her race suit, tying it around her waist as Sebastian stalks out of the garage. And after dealing with the press she does the one thing she hadn’t had time to get around to today – she heads to McLaren.

Neither Lewis nor Jenson seemed very happy. She’d forgotten that both had struggled to pull their cars towards the top of the times this weekend. Laura does her best to wipe the smile off her face, but she can’t stop the bounce in her step as she joins them.

Sitting down she grins, “I’m going to beat him in qualifying,” she states. “I hope he cries.”

Jenson rolls his eyes while Lewis comments, “The next Mark Webber. I can see RBR have a much cooler duo this year.”

Laura smiles, “I have no intentions of things going like that.”

Jenson leans across; his shoulder was pushed against hers, “Where were you this morning?”

“Slept in,” she lies casually. She had no intention of telling either of them she was studying, no one needed to know that. She smiles at Lewis deciding to change the topic, “I heard you had a sock issue…”

Lewis scowls as Jenson snickers. And Laura bumps her knee against his and she grins. Lewis muttering his great dislike for both of them stalks off.

“Have you returned them?” Laura asks as Jenson’s hand falls to her bare knee.

He grins at her. “Yeah, I laid them all neatly outside of his hotel room door. I cut off all the toes though…”

She smiles at him leaning closer as his hand slides up her thigh. He looks at her seriously his smile disappearing.

“Have dinner with me?”

She knew what he was asking, and she swallows immediately hesitant.

“Have dinner with me tonight Aston,” he repeats quieter. His hand falls to the back of her head when it drops to his shoulder and he whispers in her ear, “After, we’ll see if we can find what corner Vettel is crying in when you beat his ass in quali later.”

Laura can’t help but smile at that and she lifts her head and he grins at her. “Okay,” she nods. “Dinner.” His grin widens, and she can’t help but look at him with her own stupid version. “What time?”

His fingers push a loose strand of hair from her face. “Meet in the lobby at seven?”

She nods. “Good luck this afternoon.”

“Thanks.” He lets her get to her feet but before she can walk away he grabs her hand. “Not everything has to be worst case scenario for the record.” He understood her fear, but it didn’t have to end badly for them.

“I know,” she says squeezing his hand. “I’ll see you tonight.” Walking out, she was aware of the eyes of the McLaren team members on them, including those of Whitmarsh who seemed unimpressed. She dodges him though when he moves towards her, heading out into the paddock determined not to care what anyone thought of her and Jenson. Hell, if you believed what was written, she and Jenson had been together for nearly two years now. What mattered in all of this was what she and Jenson wanted and what they thought. And that was why she’ll keep her mind open for tonight.

She won’t abide all her rules she’d set herself when it came to dating, especially other drivers. She was determined to let tonight be whatever it will be, and she’ll worry about consequences tomorrow. No more games, Lewis was right, it was tiring and frustrating. Her stomach did a nervous flip and she pushes tonight aside to concentrate on qualifying.

 

*          *        *

 

“You going out?” Miles asks surprised when his sister throws open her hotel room door. Laura shrugs and goes to pull on her sweater, leaving the door open so Miles could enter. “You never wear make up…” He is suspicious immediately.

“It’s just dinner with Jenson,” she answers casually, “Which I’m going to be late for.”

“Date with Jenson?” Miles asks as she slips on her shoes. “I came to check on you to see if you weren’t disappointed about qualifying but you don’t even seem upset.”

Laura shrugs. “I fucked up the last run, my fault. I could have had pole, should have been mine.” It was the truth, she was pissed at herself, there was no one to blame, and it should have been hers. But she was P3 behind Alonso and she was determined to have a better race; that was after all where the points were given.

“So, date with Jenson?” Miles repeats and he doesn’t like that Laura remains silent. Leaning on the hotel room door he stares at his sister. “This is a bad idea.”

“If I wanted your opinion or advice, I would have asked Miles,” she replies calmly. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Do you? Being with him is a bad idea. You’re competitors and good friends. I thought his friendship was important, and friends can’t have sex.” He was not blind to the fact that there was something going on between the two, but it didn’t change the reality that it wouldn’t end well. There were rumours, but rumours were rumours and the moment the press got wind that there really was something between the two it would be chaos, he was sure.

“I’m late,” she tells him moving to the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

Miles grabs her arm tightly. “You cross the line Aston, you can’t go back.”

She kisses his cheek. “I know. Goodnight Miles.”

Miles steps back and follows her into the hall and he watches her hurry to the elevators. Sighing he shoves his hands into his pockets. He wishes Lillian was here, she’d be much better at ensuring that Laura was more cautious of her decisions. Heading to his own room he realises it took one race weekend without her for Laura to throw caution to the wind in regard to her relationship with Jenson.

Frowning he wondered exactly how much influence Lillian had held over their younger sibling. Had Lillian been that much of a voice in Laura’s ear that it had kept Jenson and Laura from ever moving past friendship? Was that why Laura had insisted that Lillian wouldn’t work with them this year? He’d always thought it had to do with whatever ‘ _the incident’_ was at McLaren after last year’s Brazilian race. Pursing his lips Miles realises he had gotten no closer to solving what _‘the incident’_ was; everyone seemed to be very mom on the subject. It didn’t matter, it would come out eventually, all secrets did in the end.

 

*          *        *

 

Jenson’s arm slides around her when she joins him in the lobby. He smiles at her as she apologises for being late, her own arm moves around his back and the two of them walk out. There wasn’t any awkwardness between them, but Jenson hadn’t been expecting that.

He knew Aston like he knew the back of his hand, and the only difference with tonight and their previous dinners was that he wouldn’t have to curb every desire and urge he had when it came to her. Like when it came to holding her hand and with that thought he takes it as they walk towards his rental car.

“Can I drive?”

Jenson opens the passenger door, “No,” he tells her firmly. “You’re a terrible driver.” She grins at him, not fighting him as she slips into the passenger seat. In the car he starts the engine. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure…”

He grins at her, “Did you really do back flips across the stage on Thursday?”

“I’m sure you’ll be able to witness it for yourself on YouTube in a few days,” she answers smiling back at him.

During their dinner there is no discussion of anything F1 related. Their conversations drift from one topic to the other easily, his fingers tickling the inside of her hand. Laura finds herself leaning a little further across the table as the evening progresses and neither order dessert – not that that was unusual for them, but their dinner was shorter than usual.

She takes the keys from him and he doesn’t protest, and she drives them back, ensuring she shaved time off his trip, the need to be quicker instinctive. In the lobby his fingers lace through hers and when they step into the lift he selects his own floor and she makes no move to press her own.

Inside his suite, Jenson lets her hand go to turn on lights and open the door to his balcony. She watches him with a smile till he is once more beside her, his arms slipping around her waist as she turns to wind hers around his neck.

His head falls to hers and she’s pulled closer to him and for the first time all evening her nerves kick in furiously. And then they’re moving slowly like they were dancing to some song only they could hear. She closes her eyes, as she feels his lips press to the corner of her jaw.

His hands slide up her back slowly and down before ghosting over her arse. His lips making a slow path to hers as they continue to turn in tiny circles and she breathes out his name, “Jenson…”

And finally, he kisses her softly one of his hands touching her cheek as she returns it. She pulls him closer as the kiss deepens and her heart pounds. They were stepping across lines you couldn’t come back from. He breaks the kiss and she opens her eyes to stare into his. She was terrified, she felt like her chest was tightening in fear, despite the fact that she wanted this. “Are you scared?”

She didn’t even realise she’d asked the question aloud. “No,” he answers with a smile. “I’m very much over the game between us.”

“So am I,” she starts, her fingers pushing into his hair. “But you’re my best friend…”

“That won’t change,” he assures her and kisses her again and she sighs into his mouth as they get wrapped up once more.

“Promise,” she breathes out when they break apart. “Promise that no matter what happens you’ll always be my friend.”

“If I promised that Laura, it would be a lie,” he murmurs. “I want this.” His eyes search hers, “Do you?”

She did want this. She had thought about it for years, but it didn’t mean her reasons for keeping them apart had changed. “I want this, but I want your friendship more.” His head drops to her shoulder and he hugs her hard. “Promise me everything will be okay?”

“Take a leap of faith,” he pleads gently in her ear.

“Promise and you can have me,” she counters, and he straightens up letting her go.

He looks at her pained. “I think I want this more than you do.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want this,” she responds, tears welling in her eyes. “I just want you to promise that no matter what happens that you’ll always be there.”

He kisses her gently. “When you want this enough, you won’t ask me that.”

“When you want this enough, you’ll lie.” Their eyes lock together, waiting for one to back down and when neither does, both of them look upset. Her head drops to his chest when she couldn’t stand looking at him anymore, whispering, “This was a bad idea.”

His arms fold around her and he kisses the top of her head. And they stand there for a long time in silence, just holding the other. And Jenson realises that waiting for Laura to come around had ended. He’d let it go, because he wasn’t going to self-inflict himself with anymore misery when it came to her. He wanted her to want him enough that she didn’t care about the risks. If she loved him enough, she’d throw herself head first into this, jump and have faith.

He couldn’t lie to her; he’d never lied to her. And to start now would only be for the selfish reason to get her into bed and he knew he could have done that years ago if he wanted. And if he couldn’t have her completely then he’d settle for friendship, just like she wanted.

He smiles into her hair as he finally speaks, “Lewis is going to be pissed that we didn’t get our shit together.”

He feels her laugh against him and she looks up, a shaky smile on her face. She touches his face gently as she murmurs, “I do love you Jense.”

He grabs her hand and kisses it, “Just not enough.”

“I should go,” she tells him quietly. He nods in agreement, but she doesn’t leave and he doesn’t ask her to. Instead they continue to stand there holding each other.

 

*          *        *

 

“Why won’t you tell me what happened on your date?” Miles demands as they eat lunch together on Sunday at RBR.

“Because it clearly pisses you off,” Laura answers with a grin, but her chest had this dull ache in it since last night. Somewhere during the night as she tossed and turned tyring to find sleep she’d realised that Jenson was right. If she really wanted more, she would take a risk, but considering she hadn’t been prepared to take it in the last two years, she wonders if she ever will.

Somehow, she didn’t think it really mattered anymore anyway, because when she had left his room, the moment the door closed behind her, it was like the door finally shut on their chance. And while it hurt, it wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be. Maybe that meant something, maybe Jenson and her were never meant to be more.

“You’re a terrible secret keeper Laura,” Miles tells her. “You can’t hide things from me.”

“Ha!” She retorts. “If I was so terrible you wouldn’t have been asking this morning about _‘the incident’_.” Miles glares at her before his gaze shifts from her to someone else. And she turns to see that Sebastian and Molly had entered.

“Feel confident you can whip ass today?”

She grins at that. “Most definitely.”

 

*          *        *

 

Sebastian stands off to the side of his car drinking as he listens to Rocky, his eyes wandering the grid as the drivers slowly drift back. They eventually fall on his teammate and his gaze hardens. He had a feeling his race today wasn’t with the Ferrari of Alonso but rather with Aston.

Aston was chatting with her brother, hands moving wildly as she did. He’d noted that she did that a lot, talked with her hands. She abandons her conversation with her brother and suddenly runs ahead and Sebastian watches as she jumps on Lewis’s back as he walked with Jenson. The three of them are laughing; heads bent together when Aston jumps down and moves between them.

Sebastian felt annoyed as he watched them. There was a race in ten minutes and she didn’t appear to be taking it very seriously. It should be a good thing; it meant he’ll beat her. But it didn’t change the fact that Aston didn’t take things seriously, and he wondered what her issue was.

She had spent the last two seasons practically wedged between the McLaren drivers, and if he was honest, Hamilton and Button weren’t really any better than her. They seemed more intent on pranking each other and causing trouble than actually focusing on what they were paid to be doing.

He turns away from them looking at Heikki, his trainer and hands him his drink bottle as he gets ready for the race. Pulling on his balaclava he shoved aside his annoyance at Aston as he began to focus on the race ahead. And he refused to acknowledge that it wasn’t annoyance he felt but maybe, just _maybe_ jealousy.

 

*          *        *

 

Fourth was disappointing for Laura, especially when her teammate is celebrating the first win of the season. Christian seems happy though, telling her it was a solid performance but when she leaves the paddock that night she feels flat in regard to how her race had played out.

Miles assures her that it was a good result and in two weeks she’ll get the chance to improve. She’d just nodded as they passed Vettel who was celebrating, and her frown just etched deeper into her face. She was jealous he’d won, and she didn’t feel like hiding that fact, at least not right now.

 

*          *        *


	2. Ignoring the Past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to @formulaoneisfast for reading through and betaing!

Touching down in Melbourne Laura immediately feels a little sick and she casts a quick glance to her left at Miles to see if her brother shared the same apprehensive feeling she did. Miles though was listening to his phone; head bopping to whatever he was playing, seemingly as relaxed as usual.

Walking off the plane though, Miles does notice that his little sister was picking at her nails, something she only did when she was nervous and anxious. He wraps an arm around her shoulders, “What you thinking about? The race?” He knew it would be other things, but they never talked about the past.

“No,” she answers honestly. The race hadn’t crossed Laura’s mind at all. She opts for a change of subject since she didn’t want to discuss the real reason for her uneasiness and she doubted that Miles would either. “How’s Lillian?”

The two of them were making their way to passport clearing. Miles mutters under his breath that she should ask her herself, not at all understanding why both Laura and Lillian were feuding – they’d never gone this long without speaking before. “I’m not going to come in the middle of you two,” Miles states firmly. “I don’t know what’s going on; I don’t want to be on anyone’s side so I’m staying well out of it.”

Laura crosses her arms angrily. “You’d be on my side if you knew what happened in Brazil last year.”

Miles throws his arms in the air. “Then tell me what happened in Brazil!”

“Can’t,” Laura huffs. “Lewis, Jenson and I have sworn to never discuss it, and honestly I don’t want to recall it. Plus, you can ask Lillian as well.” She also knew that Miles, like herself could be hot headed and impulsive and she already knew she was going to have to work hard if she wanted to drive for McLaren in a few years; Miles didn’t need to make things worse.

“Whatever,” Miles returns annoyed. “I don’t care what _‘the incident´_ is anyway.”

“Liar,” Laura smiles before handing her passport over. Once they’ve gone through customs after picking up their luggage they both set about making their way to the hotel, mostly in silence as Laura drives the rental car provided to her. Miles comments and whinges on her wild driving, but she hardly notices, her mind having drifted off again and she chews her thumb nail as that anxious feeling returns with vigour.

 

*          *        *

 

That night Laura goes out to dinner with Jenson and Lewis. Miles had bailed at the last moment telling her that he had made last minute plans with someone else, leaving her to spend the evening alone with both McLaren drivers. Considering that she and Jenson had failed to kick start anything between them in Bahrain, things haven’t been awkward, in fact things were exactly the same as always.

“This is what I love about Melbourne,” Lewis says with his mouthful, “The food here, the places where you can eat are unbelievable.”

Jenson agrees while Laura blinks having missed the comment. “Sorry?”

Lewis rolls his eyes shoving more food in his mouth while Jenson just frowns. “What is it with you and Melbourne? Every year you come here like you’re on edge and both years you raced here, well let’s be honest… you were complete shit.”

Lewis raises his eyebrows, “Very subtlety put Jense.” Lewis leans towards Laura, “No wonder you rejected him two weeks ago.”

Laura punches him Lewis in the shoulder. “Stop mentioning that.”

“I don’t like the word rejection,” Jenson interrupts frowning.

“Dude, rejected,” Lewis repeats.

“I think I prefer it to be called a mutual decision to remain friends,” Jenson nods liking that better and Laura breaks into a smile at their argument silently eating as she listens.

“I think I’ll call it a mutual decision to ensure Lewis has to spend another year of watching you two being friends but wanting more,” he states, before flicking his fork between them. “Neither of you get to bitch about each other to me and I swear if either of you even make those sappy lovey dovey looks at one another I’m going to make a public announcement that Aston rejected Jenson in Bahrain.”

“Hey!” Both of them protest.

“You’ve been warned. Did we want to go back to discussing why Aston can’t drive in Australia?” Lewis asks happy to change the subject back.

“Maybe Australia just isn’t my track?” Laura offers simply.

“Okay,” Jenson nods slowly before offering his counter argument, “Not your track, but why do you leave Melbourne with next to no fingernails?”

Laura drops her fork to look at her fingers. She’d already begun gnawing them down. It was amazing how much she could chew through in less than a week. “It’s like pruning, you chew them back and they came back stronger and longer than ever.”

Lewis laughs and Jenson frowns. “What are you afraid of here?”

Laura sighs and picks up her fork to push her pasta around in her plate aimlessly. This was the only place and race that led to the only time in a whole year she thought about one person she wished she could blank from her memory. “I’m afraid that I’ll be made to face the past.”

Her cryptic response leaves both McLaren drivers confused and bewildered, but neither ask for clarification both aware that Laura shifted uncomfortably in her seat. They also knew her well enough to know when to drop touchy subjects and this was clearly one of them.

 

*          *        *

 

On Thursday, Sebastian and Laura are sitting next to each other as they sign autographs for fans. It didn’t take long for Sebastian to notice that Laura was wearing bandaids on two of her fingers. He looks up at her, “What did you do to your fingers?”

Laura smiles at a fan before leaning forward for a picture before shooting a look at her teammate. “Consequence for a bad habit,” she answers as she scrawls her name for another fan and says ‘hey’.

“You have to use the bandaids with cartoons on them? They are made for children…”

“Well I like them,” she defends.

“Any chance of another back flip?”

Laura looks at the guy that asked the question and grins at him. “Sebastian is providing the back flips for this weekend,” she answers chirpily. She was pretty sure her back flip performance was going to be referred to for a long time to come; in fact, it had been a highlight at dinner last night with Jenson and Lewis.

Sebastian snorts. “I’m not the gymnast.”

Laura smirks at him, “Just the guitarist?” She’d seen footage on you-tube of him playing guitar. “I make a better gymnast than you do guitarist.”

“Are we competing in our off-track hobbies as well?” Sebastian asks taking the shirt from the fan in front of him to sign, but he was looking at Aston.

“No point,” Laura answers coolly. “I’m better at everything than you are.”

“You’ve only proved you can do a sloppy back flip,” Sebastian argues. “So far the _racing_ record stands 1 – 0.” He enjoyed reminding her that he beat her fair and square. For some reason it felt more satisfying than with previous team mates.

In annoyance, the moment Laura finishes scrawling her latest autograph, she reaches over and draws a long line down Sebastian’s arm, digging the pen in hard. She hoped it hurt.

Sebastian snatches his arm away. “Hey!” He rubs his arm before attacking her back aiming for her face. He lands a good line on her cheek before there’s suddenly a pen war, though while the crowd laughs and cheers at them, neither of them wore smiles. Sebastian jumps to his feet to hold Aston’s head.

Laura attacks him behind her blindly. “Do _not_ think about it!” she warns. But she knew it was a pointless demand as Seb’s fingers dig into her chin hard, holding her still as he begins to draw a moustache on her face. “Stop it!” Laura screeches when Sebastian’s pen now writes across her forehead.

Sebastian smirks as she attempts to dig her nails into his arm but that was futile with her lack of them at the moment. She resorts to pinching and hitting. He frowns when she grabs the pen knocking what had been neatly writing. Aston cries out when he pulls her head back further, nearly toppling off the chair if Sebastian didn’t lean into her back and use his foot to keep the chair from sliding out from under her.

He lets her go suddenly and beams out at the crowd. He’d managed to scrawl somewhat legibly ‘# 2’. Laura’s hands fly to her forehead where she rubs her forehead furiously and Sebastian flees. He wasn’t sticking around as Laura gets to her feet. Molly blocks her path and shakes her head at her.

“You both can’t leave,” she states firmly. “Finish up; you can pay out Vettel later.”

Laura seethes but stomps back to her chair, one hand covering her forehead as she keeps signing after being made aware by the fans what Vettel had marked her with.

 

*         *        *

 

“What the hell kind of pen is this?” Jenson asks as he scrubs at Laura’s face in the McLaren bathroom.

“Is it fading at all?” Laura was trying to be hopeful but she had a horrible feeling she was going to have to scrub more than a few layers of skin to clean her face.

“You’re going to look like a tomato when I’m done,” Jenson mutters.

“I hate him,” she tells Jenson. “I’m going to murder him in his sleep. Nope, wait, then I’ll go to prison. I’ll hire someone to do it for me. _Or_ I’m going to get those ants that eat your skin off; I reckon that would be painful.”

Jenson steps back. “Flesh-eating ants? Remind me to not piss you off.”

Laura groans shoving his hands away to look in the mirror. It had come off mostly; there was now just a feint line. She did however now have sore skin from being rubbed raw. She slumps against the sink feeling sorry for herself. “I hate this race.”

Jenson throws the soggy paper towels he’d been using to clean her face away before moving to hug her. “Don’t worry about Sebastian. And I’m sure your luck will turn around this year. Get your first win here?”

Laura’s eyes brighten at that suggestion. She was craving her first win. “It would be nice to have a good memory about this place…” And she meant more than just in regard to racing. Unbeknownst to most people, she had spent quite a lot of time in Australia when she was younger.

Her mother had been Australian after all, and when her parents had divorced when she was 12 their mother moved back home, while she stayed in the UK with her father and siblings. She and her brother and sister used to spend summer with their mother. When she was 15 things had happened that had changed everything and sent each member of her family spiralling into their own messy situations, including her then boyfriend Ben and her brother ending up serving 8 months of a 2-year prison sentence. But those were years she didn’t recall, blanked from her memory unless she was in this damn country feeling closer to the past than ever.

Jenson touches her cheek as he sees her disappear for a moment, but she returns at the touch. He smiles at her and not thinking bends down and kisses her lightly. “Cheer up Aston. Life is good.”

She was a little taken aback by the kiss, but she doesn’t say anything and when he pulls away she licks her lips savouring the brief moment between them.

“Come on, let’s find Lewis. I want him to see your face before it all fades away,” he grins at her widely and Laura rolls her eyes but follows him, enjoying the tingle on her lips that still remained.

 

*          *        *

 

Miles was enjoying the rare occasion of having company during a race weekend; last season there had been Lillian, but other than that, and especially now with his sister absent, it could get boring at times. But being at Melbourne meant he had the rare chance to catch up with an old acquaintance.

Ben Richards had known Laura since she was 15 and he was 18. They’d raced together in karting during their trips to visit their mother and been an item for three years. In fact, Miles was pretty sure Ben had been Laura’s only serious relationship, but he’d suspected that relationship dragged on much longer than it would have naturally had certain events not happened.

But Ben and Miles had formed their tight friendship during an eight-month stint in prison. It was something that both he and Ben never spoke about, nor the crime they’d committed. And while he hated that being with Ben sparked memories of what they’d done, or more importantly _why_ they’d done it, they would forever share a certain bond.

“You know,” Ben says crossing his arms grinning as Laura sits at the top of the times for first practice, “I used to beat her at Karts. Clearly that means I was F1 material.”

Miles grins. “Yes, but you threw it away for the excitement of a career in accountancy!”

Ben laughs. “What can I say; nothing gets the blood pumping like numbers.”

The moment practice is finished, Laura who had not yet had the chance to even catch up with Ben grins at him as she gets out of the car. While she’d finished second after the hour and a half, she was in front of Sebastian. Laura though puts that joy aside to hug Ben who squeezes her tightly.

“Hey,” she says happily. “It’s good to see you got the pass I sent you.”

“I see you once a year Laura, I would have come with no pass,” Ben replies letting her go.

“I have press to deal with,” she smiles walking backwards. “But after, if you two can tear yourselves away from one another…” She points between her brother and Ben, “We can catch up.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Ben grins back.

 

*          *        *

 

It was late when Laura calls Lillian. She should be sleeping and preparing for qualifying. But she had nightmares about the past that only occurred in this goddamn country. She also suspected that Ben’s presence, as much as she liked him, always affected her. Memories that were buried deep and were stowed in the dark recesses of her mind seemed to burn brightly at only one time of year.

“Hey,” Lillian finally answers.

Laura, who was sitting on the floor at the end of her bed, was surprised to her sister’s voice. “Lil?” She didn’t think she’d pick up; she was still being ignored last time she checked.

“Yeah,” she answers. “Are you surviving Oz?”

“Somewhat,” Laura answers feeling a spark of hope that her sister was actually speaking to her. “How’s things gong with you?”

There’s a moment of silence. “I want to make something very clear to you Laura. I answered not because I have forgiven you for firing me, but because I’m not a complete bitch. I know you hate going to Melbourne. I know spending a few days with Ben can turn you into a mess. Plus, last year I shared a room with you and you had awful nightmares.”

“Lil,” Laura whispers her head dropping back against the bed her eyes slipping closed. “I’m so sorry about Brazil, but please don’t think that’s why I fired you.”

“We’re not going to talk about that,” Lillian states. “Tell me about Melbourne and Ben.”

Laura swallows and instead says, “I want you to know that you are the strongest person I know Lillian. And I love you, even if we’re not talking.”

There’s another moment of silence this one though drags on. “We’re still not talking,” Lillian makes clear though her voice wavers. “Don’t throw the past up just to get forgiveness.”

“I wasn’t,” Laura says chewing her lip. “Will you just stay on the line till I fall asleep?”

“Yeah,” Lillian agrees gently.

Laura drags herself to her feet and crawls back into her bed. She puts the phone to her ear and she can hear her sister’s breathing. It was enough to get rid of the feeling of being alone and she finally finds some sleep and this time she dreams of Sebastian Vettel.

She dreams of flesh-eating ants, with a smile on her face.

 

*          *        *

 

“No,” Laura states crossing her arms as she glares at her engineer.

“No?” Ciaron’s eyebrows shoot up. “I’m not sure you can say no.”

“If ‘no’ wasn’t an option you wouldn’t have bothered asking,” Laura reasons sitting back in the chair she was occupying in the RBR motorhome. “If Sebastian thinks he’s that much better than me, he can set up the car himself.”

Ciaron purses his lips. “You were much quicker than him in practice; I think Horner would prefer if you both worked together as opposed to taking such a competitive approach.”

“Lessons learned from Webber?” Laura smirks at him. She leans towards him across the small space between them as he sighs, “I don’t care about the consequences. Tell Horner you couldn’t convince me and put the blame on me. I’m in the mood for an argument.” She’d been grumpy since she got up this morning and it might actually do her some good to let out some of her frustrations which currently had nothing to with racing.

“Seb did offer you his at the last race…” Ciaron seemed to be giving it one last go to convince her.

“Which I didn’t use,” Laura shrugs.

“And you weren’t as quick,” Ciaron reminds her harshly with the truth.

“I’m not sharing,” Laura snaps jumping to her feet. “I had to scrub away six layers of skin to clear to my face, now he can feel some damn pain.” She stomps off, pretending not to notice Christian who waved to get her attention. She heads to the exit almost making it out of RBR when her elbow is caught.

“Aston.”

She turns around to see Sebastian standing there and her eyes sparkle angrily. “No,” she states. “No, you can’t have my setup.”

Sebastian lets her go and his eyes harden. “I offered you mine…”

“Because you were being generous or because you were trying to prove some point?” Laura asks sarcastically.

“I’m not that stubborn that I won’t ask for help when I need it,” he tells her coldly, “Unlike other people that would rather finish fourth than accept a little advice.”

“No,” she repeats again.

“I can have it that you are ordered to hand it over,” Sebastian threatens.

She sucks her breath in. “Do it,” she dares, her eyes locked with his in a silent battle. After a long moment Sebastian spins on his heel and Laura watches as he cuts a path directly to Horner and furious that he was running to tattle on her and get his own way she turns and fumes out into the paddock.

She heads to McLaren, bitching to Jenson made her feel better. But she stops, and her breath draws in sharply. Jenson was standing outside the motorhome chatting with some woman. Laura for what feels like forever just stares at them laughing together, her chest ached. And when Jenson touches her hair she turns away and heads back the way she came. Her anger was gone, replaced with hurt and regret.

 

*          *        *

 

Sebastian looks up from the setup data that he’d acquired from Aston to see that the lanky figure that had fallen next to him at the back of the garage was his ex-teammate. His and Mark’s relationship had been just as strained as what his and Aston’s was, but he was pretty sure that things had been better with Mark. While their rivalry had been intense he hadn’t felt the need to prove himself nor had he ever found himself just staring at Mark because he looked cute when he was concentrating. Aston was becoming a distraction he wished he didn’t have to deal with.

“Sebi,” Mark smiles at him clapping him on the back.

“I told you never to call me that,” Sebastian mutters. “I didn’t know you were going to be here…”

“Still part of the Red Bull family,” Mark shrugs. “Just doing some minor press work but it’s nice to be a spectator and enjoy things rather than being focused so completely.”

“Arguable,” Seb answers and Mark looks away then and he thinks the older Australian would rather be racing.

“So what’s the deal with you and Aston?”

Sebastian stiffens before shrugging.

Mark smirks then. “She’s been around for two years Seb, two years I raced with you.” He leans closer as both men stare at Aston who was talking to her brother and whoever her guest was this weekend. “You have a thing for her,” Mark states.

Sebastian turns his head sharply, angry, and slightly alarmed at the accusation. “Why would you say that?”

“You stared a lot when you thought no one was looking,” Mark replies simply.

“She makes you look like the perfect teammate,” Sebastian tells him bluntly.

Mark laughs then. “She’s just a woman mate. I doubt she’s that bad.”

“She doesn’t like to share,” Sebastian says not caring if he sounded like he was sulking.

Mark goes to respond but their conversation is interrupted by Christian who calls Mark over. And Sebastian eyes drift from his team boss and his former Australian teammate back across the garage to Aston. She was staring directly at him, her eyes cold and angry as they lock with his. The moment between them drags on and Sebastian is pretty sure that he really does hate her no matter how good looking he might think she is. He breaks their staring competition and goes back to studying her data determined to make her hurt by beating her on track.

 

*          *        *

 

“Are you ignoring me?” Jenson confronts Laura the moment she emerges from the RBR energy station.

Laura jumps startled at Jenson’s sudden appearance. “Were you like waiting for me?”

“Yes,” Jenson answers. “You’ve avoided me all day and didn’t respond to my text messages.”

“I’ve been busy,” she answers shrugging but Jenson’s eyes narrow, knowing her well enough to know when she was lying or being evasive and this was definitely one of those situations. “Plus, if you hadn’t realised, I was busy qualifying.”

“Why are you mad at me?”

“I’m not mad,” Laura denies, “I’ve been _busy_.”

“Right,” Jenson nods not believing her at all. “So, then you’ll have dinner with me tonight?”

“I have plans,” she comes back with immediately.

“Breakfast?”

“Stop it,” she orders him. “I’ll catch up with you when I can, I’m sure you have other people you can spend time with.”

“Is that supposed to mean something?”

“No!”

Jenson touches her arm. “Laura,” he says quietly hoping she’d just drop whatever the issue was, but she jerks away from him.

“I have to go,” she mutters and Jenson watches as she practically bolts from him. He had no idea what he’d done but she was clearly angry and upset at him. He drags a hand through his hair pulling at it in frustration. He couldn’t win with Laura, as a friend or as more.

 

*          *        *

 

Laura was lying on her bed flipping channels as Ben sat at the end rubbing her feet and staring up at her. Miles had left them to catch up, but she wasn’t in the mood to talk but Ben clearly was, he opened his mouth to start multiple conversations before closing it again. She dreaded to know exactly what he wanted to discuss, the past was certainly not up for conversation.

And she certainly didn’t want to rehash qualifying which had seen her in a lowly seventh. She was just wishing this weekend would be over. Everything bad that could go wrong would if she was in Oz. She wasn’t even expecting to finish the race tomorrow.

Ben puts her feet down and moves up to flop down next to her before grasping the TV remote from her. “Okay, enough moping.”

“I wasn’t moping,” she argues.

“I was trying to decide what to discuss with you…”

“Can I choose?”

“Sure, we can talk about what’s going on between you and Jenson, or you and your teammate, or my personal favourite, you and Lillian,” Ben rattles off the choices. “The other is of course you and being here and the fact that you now have five bandaged fingers because you’ve chewed them down till they’ve bled.”

Laura looks at her fingers and frowns, at least there were barely any nails to chew anymore. “Firstly, Jenson is none of your business. Secondly, Sebastian Vettel might actually be someone I despise and thirdly, Lillian will forgive me eventually when she realises I did the right thing.”

“What happened in Brazil with Lillian?” Ben had heard bits from Miles, but he wanted to know what actually happened.

Laura sighs and leans backwards against the headboard. “Promise to not mention anything to Miles?”

Ben grins. “You enjoy driving him up the wall with secrets, don’t you?”

“Just the ones he wants to know,” Laura answers smiling.

“Fine,” Ben nods. “I won’t say a word.”

“Okay,” Laura says nodding as Ben looks up at her. “For the last few races of last season, Jenson, Lewis and I had this small bet going between us about which guy Lillian was seeing. I was convinced it was Fernando, so was Lewis actually but, Jenson was going to prove us both wrong.”

“Whoever Lillian was with, I’m going with he was married,” Ben offers smiling.

Laura snorts. She guesses it wasn’t a secret that Lillian was attracted to the unattainable. “Yeah, he was. She can’t just choose a nice normal guy. He has to be unavailable or have some other serious flaw that makes him a poor choice.”

“Anyway, keep going,” Ben waves her on.

“Right, so anyway. Jenson in Brazil insisted that Lewis and I hide in this closet…” Laura stops and throws her hands up. Even repeating the tale out loud sounds ridiculous and she mentally chastises herself once more. “I don’t know why I just do what he says. I didn’t even realise it was going to be about that stupid bet. He just said we _had_ to see this.

“So, there we were… Lewis and I trapped with just a keyhole as our viewing hole and we’re soon the witnesses of my sister getting it on with bloody Martin Whitmarsh! I mean seriously?! The team principal of a team I hope to score my next contract with?!”

Ben’s eyes widen. “How much did you see?”

“Enough, but honestly we heard more than we saw.” She cringes at the memory. Why was there no erase button for memories? It would come in handy for quite a few she had. “Anyway, Lewis’s phone started ringing which wasn’t on silent and we were pretty much sprung. And how do you explain being in the closet with someone without admitting you were spying?”

Laura feels embarrassed remembering back, her cheeks suddenly flushing as she adds, “So Martin and Lillian think, well _thought_ Lewis and I were having some fling. FYI, not true. They were meanwhile both completely mortified that we’d seen them. We sort of all just hurried out of the room to find a smirking Jenson waiting for us.”

Ben is laughing loudly.

Laura covers her face. “I was so embarrassed and so angry. And Lillian… I fired her. Told her that she wasn’t going to come to anymore races and she of course was furious telling me I couldn’t fire her for having a personal life I didn’t agree with. And then we argued about Lewis and our fake relationship, because Lillian had banned me from any relationships with drivers.” That had been a horrible conversation, she rarely fought with her sister, but they’d really ripped into each when Laura had fired her.

Ben doesn’t know whether to laugh. The whole thing seemed rather amusing if it wasn’t for the fact the two sisters had fallen out over it. “So, you overreacted and fired her,” he finally comments. “Just apologise and rehire her.”

Laura glares at him. “I don’t apologise,” she states. “Never.”

Ben rolls his eyes, but he knew from their own relationship that was the case. Laura’s greatest flaw was that she couldn’t admit when she was wrong, maybe to herself but never to anyone she wronged. He also couldn’t recall her ever apologising for anything. In some ways, she still had a lot to learn and a lot of growing up to do.

“I know you think you did the right thing, but Lillian can do what she likes,” Ben reminds her gently.

She sighs and slumps backwards. “I know,” she mutters begrudgingly. “But I don’t think firing her was bad. I mean Lillian and Miles have always been there for me. Miles manages me, and Lillian has handled all my PR and other odds and ends. I know they do it because they love me but sometimes I wish they had their own life…”

He wraps an arm around her shoulders. “You should talk to her, make her understand. She’ll forgive you,” Ben assures her. Laura and Lillian were more than siblings, they were each other’s best friends, and while he would never tell Laura this, Laura needed Lillian more than Lillian needed her. She’d chosen a life that was hard, and Laura may have done something selfless, but it wasn’t in her best interest.

“Yeah, I hope so. I want her to go and study. She always talked about it she just never did because she was following me around the world…” She looks up at Ben and touches his cheek. “It’s good to see you again,” she murmurs dropping the topic. She never realised that she missed him until she saw him again. She could go for nearly a year without thinking of him and then he’d pop back and she wonders how she managed without him.

They fall silent. Ben’s finger twirling in her ponytail, his own mind drifting back over their relationship; it had been driven by guilt and for the most part about comfort never about love, not the right kind of love anyway. Because he loved her, hell he served a prison sentence for her and he knows if he could he would go back and do it again in a heartbeat.

“Laura,” he murmurs.

“Hmmm,” she answers sounding tired.

“When you race tomorrow, don’t give up. There’s no correlation between how you perform in Australia and the past. It’s in your head.” He’d watched her qualifying and he could tell she was on edge, making mistakes he hadn’t seen from her in the races he’d watched. He hesitates before adding, “ _Race hard_.”

The words echo in head, _‘race hard’_. And she closes her eyes feeling like she’d been smacked down, and she had the overwhelming urge to cry. “You should go,” she forces out. He does without protest, scooting off the bed and she follows him out. She opens her hotel room door and Ben gives her a smile.

“Call Lillian,” he orders.

“I will,” she replies silently adding, _eventually_.

“See you tomorrow,” he promises, and she nods, and he grabs her chin and kisses her mouth hard.

When he moves away she’s startled to see Sebastian and his trainer watching on. Heikki raises his eyebrows and Seb just scowls. Why couldn’t he just fall off the Earth? She spins around and walks back into her suite slamming the door.

 

*          *        *

 

The race is chaos. Miles and Ben watch from the back of the grid as the rain buckets down. Miles was sure he’d have to bandage his fingers just like Laura as he chews them furiously. The order was all over the place, but Laura was one of the drivers that had made the right call on tyres when the rain came. She was also one of the drivers that managed to not spin or crash. Yet.

Right now, she was running in the lead, Jenson right behind with Sebastian in third. But there was still a third of the race to go. And Miles was crossing everything he had for his sister, he knew how badly she wanted her first win and it would really mean something for her to nail it in Australia.

He could feel Ben jiggling nervously next to him, his eyes just as fixed to the screens as his were. They silently count the laps down, Jenson seemingly inching closer, the gap falling between them. Sebastian might be third but there was a ten second gap between him and the two cars running at front.

Miles freezes, his heart stopping when Laura misses her braking point for the corner shooting across the gravel. “Shit,” he breathes out as he watches his sister wrestle the car back on track, not only losing her place to Jenson but also to her teammate. Laura will be immensely pissed off about that. He prays she keeps her head on for the rest of the race.

There’re only five laps left and Miles anxiety increases as he watches Laura attempting to dive up the inside of her teammate over and over. If they crashed… It would be Turkey 2010 again. He looks over at Mark Webber who was here this race, his eyes glued to the action on the screens, the Aussie absorbed just as much as everyone else in the garage.

“They’re going to take each other out,” Ben breathes out as both Red Bulls roar down the pit straight side by side.

“No,” Miles answers more out of necessity than belief. His breath sucks in as the cars touch going through the first corner, Laura’s car jerking as she corrects to avoid a spin, giving way to her teammate. For a moment he covers his eyes not wanting to watch anymore but he can’t help himself.

The last lap couldn’t come soon enough and Miles wonders if an order was given to both the team’s drivers because Laura seems to have given up the fight. She slots in behind Vettel for the last lap following him across the line for third her nose glued to the rear. He smiles in relief more than anything. It was his first podium with the team, and she’d equalled her best result of her career in a place that haunted her. She might have let a win slip by, but she was unbelievable, and he follows the team out with Ben next to him to celebrate the team’s podiums.

 

*          *        *

 

The moment Laura gets out of the car she’s grabbed by Jenson. Her anger and annoyance at him are temporarily lost in the whirl of emotions pumping through her. She knows she equalled her best result, but she is furious. How she would love to somehow pin this on her teammate or even Jenson, but there was no one to blame but herself.

But Jenson’s excitement at his first win of the season is a little infectious and she giggles as she’s spun around and then deposited back on her feet. She notes Sebastian was already walking to get weighed and she heads after him. Undoing her helmet, she pulls it off before stepping onto the scales.

He waits for her though giving her a one armed hugged when she falls into step next to him. “Thanks for that,” he smiles.

She glares at him shrugging his arm from her. “Consider it the only gift I give you. Christmas and your birthday all rolled into one.”

His grin just grows as Jenson bounds over to join them as they prepare for the podium ceremony. He uses the opportunity to hug Laura again the two talking in murmured voices, Jenson’s arm tightly around her neck.

Sebastian gulps down water as he watches them wondering if they realised the picture they were providing the cameras. It would just be fuel to the rumour mill they were together, and he nearly chocks on his water when Laura kisses his cheek hard. A hard stab of jealousy unmistakably this time as he jumps to his feet to pull on his cap.

On the podium Laura grins down at her brother and Ben as the British anthem plays. The moment she can, she grabs the bottle of champagne and sprays it at Jenson. If her fuck up had to hand someone a win, she’d choose Jenson, anyone but her teammate. They pose for pictures before heading to the press conference.

The standard questions are asked in the first half of the press conference, which really focuses on tyre calls. The rain had come from nowhere and the drivers at the front were the ones that were badly affected; like Sebastian who’d already passed the pits when the rain fell. Laura had followed Jenson in, the first two cars to pit as the skies opened leaving the leaders on a treacherous lap around leading to both Ferraris and Lewis to skid off, Felipe ending up in a wall.

_“Sebastian, I believe that you and Aston actually touched at one point going through turn 1?”_

Sebastian sits up straighter. “Did we? I think it was just a light touch. A little kiss. It was a nice fight.”

_“Laura you nearly went off after that, did you back off for the last lap?”_

Laura smiled a little. “It was important to finish the race. The conditions were tricky and I’d already made one mistake. I think for points, it was safer.”

_“Are you upset that you lost the win?”_

“Of course,” Laura responds before shrugging. “But I just missed my braking point. My mistake. But I’m happy for Jenson.” She looks over at him and they share a grin before he squeezes her shoulder.

Someone shouts out, “As was evident when you kissed him!”

Jenson grins and Laura’s cheeks flush a little redder. Jenson leans forward to respond, “Hardly the kind of kiss to get excited about. Plus, I’m sure Aston kisses all the drivers that win.” He nudges her, and she thumps his arm.

“I have a question for Sebastian, after you won the last race, did Laura congratulate you with a kiss?”

That makes Seb snort and there’s laughter around the room.

Laura wishes she could take back the impulsive display of affection. She didn’t think it was a big deal, but she should have known better; the media seemed to be waiting with bated breath for her and Jenson to announce they were together; unfortunately, that wasn’t the case and most likely never to be. Her cheeks still red Laura responds, “Seb got his kiss during the race, as he mentioned earlier.”

It takes longer than usual to wrap up all her media commitments. Good results tend to mean more people want to speak to you. But the moment she can get away she’s pleased, plus she gets to the chance to catch up with Miles and Ben, who hug her hard offering both their congratulations and their commiserations. She heads back to the RBR motorhome with both, pleased that her nightmare of a weekend, even if it had highlights was nearly over.

 

*          *        *

It was already late when Laura drags Ben and Miles with her, leaving the RBR bash to join McLaren’s celebrations. They find Lewis and Nicole first and spend a good chunk of time with them before Laura slips away to go and find Jenson.

He was laughing with his engineers, but her stomach did a flip when he seemingly brightens at her presence. And for a moment she regrets what happened in Bahrain because she wanted more than just a hard hug. She reaches over to steal his drink trying to remember that Jenson had already set about moving on as she remembers his flirty conversation with some mysterious blonde.

At least alcohol will help, with Jenson and with letting loose, because she really did want to enjoy herself tonight. She may well be past tipsy as she lets Ben and Miles twirl her around endlessly in the club. She even dances with Jenson, enjoying being in his arms, even if this was the closest she was now able to have him. She tries not to hold him too much, to not cling too much, and she must fail because Lewis tells them to get a room.

Laura only flushes bright red and Jenson releases her, pushing her towards her brother and Ben. “Go,” he urges because he knows where this will end up otherwise.

“Congratulations,” she says again walking backwards, she wanted him to know she meant it.

He blows her a kiss before Ben yanks her backwards. “Come on Laura, time to put you to bed.”

“Hey,” she protests as she lets Ben and Miles drag her out. She stumbles over her own feet, her balance not quite there in her current state, but between both men she manages to not fall and make it back to her own room. It’s only then she wraps her arms tightly around Ben, knowing he would be gone in the morning.

“Come to more races,” she murmurs in his ear. “I miss you too much.”

Ben squeezes her tightly. “Liar, but we’ll see.” He kisses her cheek hard. “So proud of everything you have achieved Laura. Never forget that.”

“Love you,” she says into his neck not wanting to let go. Too bad he went and got married. She thinks she could do a relationship with Ben easily. It was always so easy to be with him, even if she’d never been _in_ love with him. This felt like the simplest and easiest thing in her life sometimes.

“Love you too.”

 

*         *        *


	3. Attempted Amends, Amends and That Photo

 

It’s another race, another weekend. Malaysia Laura wants nothing but to try and right her wrong this weekend, get the win that she let slip away in Australia. She’s not sure she’s ever wanted something so badly. And finally getting in front of Sebastian would also be nice.

She was standing with Miles at the back of the garage prior to Saturday qualifying, she’s staring at the car with her lips pursed not feeling quite so confident from her practice runs that she can deliver a pole. She folds her arms and wants to get this moving, get going.

“Lillian says good luck,” Mile looks over at her and Laura looks up smiling. She hadn’t spoken to her sister since their phone call in Australia but maybe things were moving in the right direction. “You two sorting things out?”

“I hope so.” And Laura means that, she wanted her sister back on her side. This fight was now dragging on too long.

The cars are being fired up and Miles nudges her. “Now go and get pole,” he orders.

She grins and salutes before reaching for her balaclava and getting ready.

 

*         *        *

 

Opening the door to his hotel room on Saturday night the last person that Sebastian expected to see was his teammate. Laura was standing there smiling at him. “Aston?”

“Want to celebrate?”

Seb’s eyes looking at the water bottle she was holding as he answered, “What? My pole and your fourth position?”

The smile on her face falters. “Yes.”

“I have water in the room,” Sebastian informs her again his tone colder than he intended.

Her smile returns, “You shouldn’t judge anything by its packaging, Sebastian.”

And he was sure that was meant to mean something else, but he moves aside to let her in as he satisfies his curiously, “What is it?”

“Vodka,” she answers simply moving to the spot on the floor that he’d been occupying before he was interrupted. “Studying?”

Her foot nudges the rough spread of telemetry printouts he’d been pouring through for tomorrow’s race. “There was a reason why I beat you at the last race,” he tells her as he roughly scoops up his data not at all willing to share with her.

“A crazy assed race that was mine and I aquaplaned from first in?” she challenges.

“Or Bahrain,” he fires back.

“I’m so pleased you’re keeping score, I was worried we weren’t keeping track.” She snaps sarcastically and Sebastian scowls at her.

He drops his papers onto a chair and goes to get some glasses. “Where did you get the vodka?” They were in Malaysia and a country not known for its drinking.

“Something I brought with me,” she smiles unscrewing the cap and pouring two drinks.

“To my win tomorrow,” Sebastian states downing the drink she’d poured and slamming the glass down.

“We’ll see,” she says gulping hers down.

Drinking was something Sebastian didn’t do during a race weekend but he’d just made an exception. And it was because he wanted to know the real reason why Aston was here. “So now that we did that, are you going to tell me why you’re here?”

She falters. “I’m making an effort.”

Sebastian raises his eyebrows not following.

“With us,” she clarifies. “We’re teammates.”

“Yes,” he agrees slowly. “And we get along fine…”

“You ignore me,” she states after a moment. “And you only tell me what you have to, and while I can live with that, while I’ll still beat you in spite of that, I don’t want things to be like that.”

He was taken aback by her forwardness he hadn’t expected that, but he really wasn’t sure what to expect when it came to Aston because he really hadn’t made an effort. “I don’t want to be your friend Aston. I’m not Button.”

She glares at that. “Fine.”

He watches her snatch up her alcohol and before she pulls open the door he can’t resist asking the question, “Are the rumours true about you two?”

“Well Sebastian,” she says looking at him coldly, “Maybe if we were _friends_ I’d feel comfortable answering that question but since we’re not that is none of your damn business.” When he doesn’t say anything she snaps, “You’re an asshole.”

“No, I’m not,” he says simply enjoying the look of fury in her eyes.

“Whatever.”

He flinches when the door is slammed after her. He had no intention of befriending her and he didn’t care what she wanted, he needed to focus on what mattered – ensuring that this season, and this race he beat her in equal machinery.

He does. He wins with her in third and it tastes so fucking sweet.

*          *        *

 

Laura lets her head drop to the front of her apartment door for a moment as the banging continues. Lillian was shouting at her to open the door and after a moment she steps back to pull it open, a magazine being waved around furiously. “So, it takes one photo shoot for you to speak to me again?”

“What were you thinking?” Laura winces as her sister screeches at her moving past her and Laura closes the door following as Lillian continues. “You said you didn’t need me, you said you could take care of things yourself! I’m out of the picture and you immediately go and do some raunchy shoot?”

“It’s hardly raunchy,” Laura protests.

The magazine that saw her standing on the cover in a black bikini was being stabbed at furiously by Lillian. “Why did you do this?”

“And why not?” If she was honest, Laura did have some regrets about doing the shoot, but she was certainly not going to admit that to her sister, and it was only a small regret. She actually liked the photo of herself, and she was normally quite self conscious when it came to body image.

“You’re a racing driver! You’ve fought for years to be seen like one, stripping down does nothing for your image,” Lillian fumes. Laura remains silent not sure what else to say and after a bit, Lillian’s anger subsides slightly as she asks another question, her voice a little testy still though, “I thought you got that tattoo removed?”

Laura hesitates looking at the photo that saw her thumb hooked in the edge of her bikini bottoms, pulling it down to expose the tattoo she’d gotten when she was sixteen. “I went too,” she answers, “But I chose not too.”

“Why?”

Her tattoo was something she didn’t want to discuss, and not with her sister. Unconsciously she reaches down and rubs it through her jeans, shrugging and hoping that was enough of an answer.

“You could have asked them to airbrush it…”

“I guess,” Laura mutters. They had actually asked but the reason she liked that shot was because the tattoo was visible and while the tiny phrase may not be quite so relevant now, it had been. She decides to change the subject, “Did you come here to just yell at me about this, or have you forgiven me?” She gives her sister a hopeful smile because she had missed her.

Lillian looks at her and forces a smile. “I forgave you Laura; I just wasn’t ready to tell you that.”

“And now?” Laura looks at her pleadingly and Lillian sighs. “I miss you Lil…”

“Tell me the real reason you fired me?” Lillian asks her the question that Laura had answered a million times over, but her sister had refused to believe.

“You know why, and it had nothing to do with what happened at McLaren.” Laura can tell immediately that her sister looked annoyed at the response. “You want to keep believing otherwise you can, but you’re wrong. My reasons are the ones I gave you Lillian. Please believe that.”

“And if I told you I’d seen him since that last race?” Lillian confesses and Laura wasn’t shocked as such but caught out at the confession and she’s not sure what to say. “It’s ended now for the record.”

“Good.” Laura wished her sister had better taste in men, she always chose unavailable or men who treated her poorly. “You okay?”

“Yeah…” Lillian gives her a tiny smile. “There’s someone new.”

“Please tell me they’re not married,” Laura pleads only half joking.

Lillian’s smile widens, “They’re not.”

 

*        *        *

 

Come China, Sebastian had heard of the much talked about photo of his teammate, but he had yet to see a picture. Standing in the energy station it was all anyone in the team seemed to want to talk about it. A picture of Aston half naked seemed to have caused a stir and he desperately wasn’t going to imagine that, he wasn’t interested no matter what other parts of his body thought.

The copy being passed around on Thursday falls into his hands he stares at his teammate wearing a bikini and posing provocatively. He’d never seen her like that, tried to never think of her like that and there’s a definite reaction from his lower half which he ignores as his eyes zero in on her tattoo. He hadn’t been expecting that. But he doesn’t get a chance to take it in properly.

“I’ll take that.” A hand appears in the middle of the group and there is a united cry of disapproval as the magazine is taken off them and Christian is standing there not looking at all impressed. “I’m sure there is something to do other than leer at a team member,” he snaps. The group disperses leaving Sebastian standing there awkwardly. “You have any of these?”

“Uh…no.” He wishes he did.

Christian turns and walk away muttering under his breath as he does, and Sebastian takes off his cap to scratch the top of his head as he wonders why the hell Aston would strip off. He’d have never thought she was that kind of person. He pulls his hat on, closing his eyes for a moment to admire the image burnt into his brain of his teammate. And smiling he moves off to start his weekend’s commitments.

*         *        *

Miles takes in his sister that was standing to the edge of garage in practice, seemingly likes she was avoiding everyone. He doubted she expected her photoshoot to cause such a stir, and he suspects she’s more embarrassed than pissed at the second looks she’d been receiving since she arrived yesterday, and how some of her mechanics can’t seem to look her in the eye.

If he was honest, he was siding with Lillian that it was a stupid thing to do, but giving Laura a lecture now would serve nothing at this point. “Cheer up,” he nudges her and she blinks and looks up at him. “No one really cares Lau, promise.”

She purses her lips. “I don’t care,” she answers stubbornly. “They can all look. Free world and what not.” He watches as her head mechanic nods at her and she moves to get ready for the first free practice. “They can gawk all they want, but when I beat everyone else, not only will I be the fastest, I’ll also be the hottest, and none of them can have me.” Her voice is like ice as she goes to get in the car.

Miles smiles as he lets out a puff of air, folding his arms. He watches the practice and watches as Laura thrashes the car around track, securing her a dominate time to take P1 not just in first practice but also second. Her mechanics and the guys then don’t seem so focused on her photos, no they were back to backslapping and Laura shoots him a knowing look.

He blows her a kiss as he slips out the back, allows a stomping Sebastian passed him as he goes to get a coffee before they head off.

 

*         *        *

Laura was dawdling as she made her way through the paddock to find Miles so they could head off, when she jumps at the arm that slips through hers and tightens.

“Aston,” Jenson says pulling her to his side. “Are you avoiding me?”

Laura can only give him an innocent look. “I don’t know what you mean?”

“Neither Lewis or myself have seen you this week, it’s almost like you don’t want to discuss the topic of conversation of this weekend,” Jenson tightens his grip when she tries to pull free.

Scowling Laura answers, “It’s a damn photo Jenson.”

Jenson’s eyes darken as they come to a stop. “It was a stupid thing Laura, no one is going to focus on your driving if you’re off flashing everyone.”

Glaring she replies, “I was not naked and trust me, I’m going to prove myself.”

“But Laura, you had nothing to prove before you did that,” Jenson tells her frustrated. “Maybe having Lillian around was your damn common sense.”

“It’s a damn photo Jenson!”

“Well I don’t need to see everyone man gawking at you in a magazine or on their phone,” Jenson snaps back.

He was jealous. Laura sucks in her breath. “Well that isn’t your concern. Drop it Jense,” she forces out, “We’re not discussing this because I don’t really need another lecture on this topic!”

Jenson drags in a shaky breath like he was trying to calm himself. “Fine. Dropped.”

Crossing her arms Laura tries to let her anger go. “Now that we’ve had the conversation, you want to join Miles and me for dinner?”

Jenson raises an eyebrow. “Now you’ll talk me?”

Laura shrugs. “I didn’t want the lecture, but you just gave it.” She walks backwards, “Dinner?” She flashes him a hesitant smile.

“Okay,” he nods after a moment and she gives him a tiny wave before jogging to grab Miles. At least she had a dinner with Jenson to look forward to.

*        *        *

She had pole, it felt like this weekend was hers, except the race doesn’t play out like that. A poor pitstop with a stuck wheel losing her just enough time for Sebastian to jump her and she finishes second. She was pissed, more pissed that the error gifted the win to Sebastian, any other driver and she might have accepted that, but this weekend she had been ahead of Sebastian in everything.

On the podium, Sebastian is _too_ happy, _too_ ecstatic, like he was deliberately rubbing it in her face. Laura barely sprays the champagne, instead she drinks it, a lot of it. She was not going to congratulate her teammate, and she moves passed him, shoving passed him roughly to do her damn media commitments. She just wanted a win. Why was that proving so difficult?

“Laura?”

Laura looks up to see Christian catching her before she can escape. She stares at her boss, she was not going to pretend to be anything other than pissed and disappointed.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry, this was your win, I know that, the team knows that,” he tries to give her an encouraging smile.

“Make Sebastian give me his trophy then,” she tells him simply.

“If only it worked like that,” Christian lets out a laugh and moves to give her a one-armed hug. “You did amazing this weekend, and you are going to win, I promise you that.” He squeezes her tightly.

Looking up at her team principal who had never really given her any of his one-on-one attention since he signed her, his promise had some of her anger deflate. “I wanted it today,” she confesses quietly.

“Yes, but there’s next time. Next race.” He smiles at her encouragingly.

“Yeah….” She can’t find the energy for next race right now. “I’ll see you.” Christian lets her go and she slips out, determined to get very drunk. Next race could wait.


	4. ...And Then There Were Fireworks

 

Rule 1 in Formula 1: never take let your drivers crash. It was the fifth race of the season when Laura and teammate Sebastian crash into each other fighting for fourth on the second lap. The side of the cockpit of her car slams hard into Sebastian’s back wheel as she pulled up the inside. The angle and speed causing both to spin together, cars skittering across the gravel trap.

For a moment Laura is shocked. Her teammate closed the door hard, that wasn’t necessary. In her two years in F1 now, she’d never lost it, but the anger in her stomach was an expanding ball of fire as she released her belts to get free.

The relationship she had with Seb was nothing like her previous teammates, he wasn’t Kobi friendly or Nico cheeky with her. Their relationship had been cool and professional, but she was prepared to step it up a notch as she sees Seb storming towards her out of his own car.

“What the fuck was that?!” He shouts at her, helmet still on as she puts the steering wheel back in place.

“You have to take the whole fucking track?” She retorts loudly both of them ignoring the marshals attempting to pull them back. “You knew I was there!”

“You don’t get fucking special treatment because you’re a woman!”

That makes her seethe as she screams at him, “I’m your goddamn teammate!” She’s yanked hard now on the arm as they’re being shouted at to get behind the barriers. Seb just turns and walks off, ripping off his gloves as she shoves at a marshal attempting to grab her as she storms after him.

Neither of them removes their helmet, or even look at the camera’s as they make their way down towards the pitlane. Christian is waiting for them and they’re ushered in the garage as both now begin removing their helmets.

Horner is in her ear telling her to calm down as she throws her gloves onto the bench, Seb’s helmet slamming into something hard when he throws it. She looks up at him and sucks in her breath. “This isn’t my fault,” she snaps at her boss. “He knew I was there, it was fucking deliberate.”

“Deliberate?” Seb spits out from the other side of the garage. “What are you stupid? You think I wanted my race to end like this Aston?!”

It’s the start of a loud slinging match across the garage, TV cameras picking up their insults as they swore and cursed each other. Laura would have decked had he been in reach but her engineer was blocking her path, Horner and Seb’s engineer trying to calm down their other driver.

“All you proved today,” Seb hisses at him shoving Christian’s hand off his chest, “Is that you drive like a damn woman!” She broke free of her engineer, diving at him. She’d punch him till her fist bled and for a moment she swore he looked delighted at her fury. “Don’t think I won’t fight you back just because you’re a girl,” he taunts.

Christian catches her and ripping her out the back of the garage. She wanted to scream. This wasn’t fair, this wasn’t her fault. But she’s shouted at till she stops struggling and then is marched to the Red Bull motorhome, not uttering one word to the media.

She sits alone in a room drinking water as her anger edges away. This was the first race where she didn’t have either Miles or Lillian, and right now she wanted someone to be on her side. While she was mad, while she knew she would never blame anyone but Seb for the accident she realised the severity of the situation. Their violent reaction will have created a media frenzy. She flops onto the table, her hands holding her head as she pulls at her hair in frustration. She hated today. It was a terrible day.

It’s a long time till the door reopens and Christian is standing there. He looks far from impressed and he makes her feel very little as she shrinks in her chair. “I’m sorry,” she answers simply.

“You need to talk to the press,” he states, his anger barely concealed. “Can you manage that?”

She nods and gets up. She felt calmer, the rage had drained, and it made her feel very flat. She stops in front of him wanting to apologise again but he stops her.

“I spent the last two years dealing with a pair of drivers that couldn’t work together,” he tells her quietly. “Don’t make me regret pushing for you to be here Aston.”

The fire sparks back up as she lifts her chin and glares at him. “I’m not the common link in regards to your driver problems,” she snaps. She turns on her heel and heads outside, passing Sebastian who was returning, neither looking at each other.

She’s grilled. She thinks it might possibly be the worst thing she’s had to face in her career. She settles for three answers, which she manages to combine and repeat constantly, an apology of her reaction, her regret for the team and their hard work, and finally she would focus on the next race. She’s thrown questions about Seb constantly and she gets more and more annoyed as they start quoting things he’d said about her. She shouldn’t react, she should ignore it, but they were harsh comments and she finally takes the bait.

“We race for a team before ourselves,” she answers her voice shaking with barely kept in check anger. “Unfortunately, when certain members of a team are selfish we get results like today. Let’s hope that Vettel is a big enough boy to man up to his error and apologise.” She thought she was being diplomatic but the RBR press officer grabs her, telling the press there will be no more questions as she heads back inside to the motorhome.

Christian’s there, a scowl set deep in his face. She doesn’t say anything just follows him back to the room where she’d been before, but only this time Sebastian’s waiting, his race overalls pushed to his hips and tied around his waist. She hadn’t had time to change either but with the press done with she slips her arms free of the race suit again, not bothering to take a chair.

“I don’t care right now whose fault this was,” Christian says firmly, and both of his drivers just glare across the room at each other. “But we argue behind closed doors, not in front of the world. Do I make myself clear?” Neither of them answers, knowing very well they’d stepped over the line. “In fact, you can spend the next hour screaming at each other about it in this room. I don’t give a damn. But the next time either one of you slams the other in the press like you both just did, or even act like you did in the garage, my god you’ll be out of this team so damn fast!”

His voice booms around the room and Laura stares at him amazed. She didn’t think Horner could yell. With all Red Bull’s drama’s, he was labelled weak and ineffective. She edges towards Seb and away from her boss.

“Sort this out like civilised people. We debrief in an hour.” Both watch as he turns and walks away slamming the door behind him so hard it shakes.

The silence is deafening, the tension mounting as it grows. She can feel her anger creeping back and her nostrils flare as she finally tears her gaze from the closed door to her teammate whose eyes were burning into hers with a look that she was sure was meant to kill.

“I have nothing else to say to you,” Seb breaks the silence moments later.

“I want an apology,” she orders as Seb gets up.

“For calling you a girl? You are.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever hated anyone like I hate you right now,” Laura whispers her voice trembling.

Sebastian shrugs. “I’m not here to be your best friend. Jenson can be that.”

“What the hell has that got to do with anything?” She shouts at him. “Not a fucking thing!”

“You don’t belong here. You never did,” he tells her furiously. “And the way you drove today is just proof enough!”

“Says the guy that was called crash kid?” She screeches at him both moving towards each other till they were inches apart.

“You make rookies look good,” he hisses.

“I’m going to hit you,” she warns her hands curling into fists.

He sneers at her. “Do it,” he dares.

Her fist swings through the air immediately but he’s quick, grabbing her wrist his fingers curling around her and jerking her arm painfully forward, she hisses at him as she falls against him. “Let me the fuck go!”

Sebastian’s grip only tightened and his eyes burning into hers with an intensity she’d never felt before, but she stares back, wishing he’d just turn to ash as he twists her arm behind his back so she was closer. Her blood was pumping and the pain in her arm was only adding to the mounting tension. She doesn’t see it coming even though she’s one that pressed herself harder against him.

His mouth swoops to hers. His other hand grabbing a fistful of her hair the moment she kisses him back. It’s bruising and they both fight for control as he finally releases her arm to yank her harder against him. She finds her arms around his neck pulling herself higher up him as their teeth clash, pushing furiously against his tongue. His fingers were running up her back, pressing in painfully as she yanked at his hair with one hand the other dug her nails into his shoulders. She hoped it hurt and just in case it doesn’t she bites his lip hard.

There’s blood in her mouth and he reacts, cursing in German as he shoves her hard backwards. She’s slammed against the wall as he starts shoving her race overalls down her legs, their kiss ending as they gasp for air, hands tackling the other’s clothes. Neither of them says anything, their heavy breathing echoing in the tiny room as she kicks one leg free, which he immediately grabs and presses forward, his freed erection brushing against her.

He lifts her, and she wraps one leg around his waist. He pushes in without saying one word as both just glare; anger still very much burning between them. He rolls his hips slowly and she’s shocked at the sparks of pleasure it created. She swallows her moan her head tipping back as he moves so damn slow, his hands holding her hips hard so she can’t move.

“Beg for more,” he orders breathing hard, challenging her.

Breathless she forces out, “Never.”

She wasn’t going to enjoy this, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to beg the asshole for more. He could stop and she wouldn’t care. But that was a lie and her legs locked around him tighter trying to force him to speed up, anything but this agony.

She squeezes hard trying to trap his dick and she sees his control falter and she does it again and again till he finally slams into her hard and she cries out as pleasure floods her. And for a moment as her cry echoes, Sebastian is reminded of where they are, and he gasps at her to shut up and she bites her lip hard in response. His hands let her go and fall next to her head as he suddenly begins driving into her, almost to the point of pain. She moves with him as they start kissing, desperately, his arms coming around her, hitching her into a better position.

She wanted the control, wanted it back because she was sure that he had it. His mouth was on her throat as she uncurled a leg from him and she pressed her foot back against the wall as she fought the decision for control or the release that was just in her reach.

His teeth drag across her skin his mouth eventually falling to her ear. “Hurts to be fucked over doesn’t it Aston,” he pants in her ear.

With all her strength she pushes against the wall with her leg not expecting to be quite so successful as she catches him off balance and he falls backwards, her following. He slams to the ground, his head knocking into a chair as he grunts slightly stunned as she lands hard on her left knee that was around his back. Seb lets her go to shove the chair away causing it to skid across the floor.

He sits up freeing her knee which she hastily retracts ignoring the throbbing pain as she straddles him quickly pleased to have wrestled control back. But it’s overshadowed as pain floods her senses in waves as she shifts her weight to her knees. She wonders if she might pass out as she’s made to move in his lap. But her release hits her suddenly, harder than she’s ever experienced and the pain in her knee is forgotten as Seb slams a hand over her mouth to drown out her scream as she clutched his shoulders.

He shudders and comes after she does, making her move through his orgasm, keeping his own sharp cry short as he follows her to the edge and over. For a long moment she sits in his lap, his hands still on her hips that she knew would be bruised, her knee almost unbearable in their current position. Her forehead was on his shoulder, refusing to look at him as she realises what they had just done.

“Get dressed,” he tells her quietly.

She doesn’t move because she wasn’t sure she could even stand but he doesn’t give her a choice. He lifts her up and she sees white spots as her knee uncurls. She bites hard on her lip so she doesn’t cry out. She balances on one leg, wobbling dangerously.

He doesn’t look at her, just adjusts his overalls as she breathes hard and closes her eyes in concentration. They only snap open when the door is slammed closed after him and still naked from the waist below she hops to a chair to fix herself up. She only just manages to be done when the door flies open again.

Christian stares at her. “Just making sure you’re still both alive and uninjured.”

“Fine,” she grits out reaching down to grab her knee. He gives her a nod and leaves her as she stands up and tests how much weight she can put on her leg. She limps, but as long as she kept her leg straight it wasn’t so bad. She heads to the debrief, unable to even look at her teammate as they go over the accident, something that neither her nor Seb would comment on now.

Rules are laid out for future events, the following car to yield in all circumstances. The blame was hers as far as the team was concerned. It hurt, more than she thought it would. The moment the debrief is over, not caring about her knee she flees, the first out of the room as she plans to leave the circuit.

In her hotel room, ignoring the missed calls from her brother and sister she runs herself a hot bath. And it’s not until she’s submerged, holding her knee does the first sob escape her. It’s followed by another until she’s hugging her good knee bawling, not bothering to answer knock on the door that interrupts at some point. It would be Jenson but she didn’t want to see anybody. She stays in the bath long after her tears have stopped and the water has gone cold.

She felt beaten in everyway possible this weekend. She’d never felt more like a failure.

 

*          *        *


	5. Consequences of Blind Hate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura is forced to deal with the consequences of her coupling with Sebastian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no medical knowledge and everything that follows serves only as plot devices, so please don't judge!

 

The fact that the next race was the following weekend was a bad thing. Her knee hadn’t recovered, though it wasn’t as painful, it was swollen and a mix of yellow and blue colours. It meant that she couldn’t train and dodging the team trainer was only going to work for so long. But racing this weekend was more important than any stupid knee.

It’s Monaco and as always the place gave her a thrill as she walked through the paddock next to Lillian and Miles who were talking excitedly. She was only half listening; this weekend would be tough, for all the wrong reasons. Walking into the motorhome the first person she sees is Sebastian. He just purses his lips and turns away which she was surprised hurt.

She had no idea what to think of what happened. She was going with the idea to bury it deeply and focus on herself and nothing else. Her and Sebastian, what happened was a moment of insanity in the heat of a moment, one that had left its mark. 

She puts her full weight on the leg pressing her lips together tightly and fighting back a dart of pain. She quickly transfers her weight back to her other leg and desperately tries to ignore the worry and fear that she really might not be able to drive.

Miles is waving his hand in front of my face, “You and Seb score front row seats in today’s press conference,” he grins.

“Not a surprise,” she mutters snatching the piece of paper from him. “I’ll be back,” she promises walking out of the motorhome when she sees Phil her trainer.

She goes to McLaren to find Jenson or Lewis. They’re together chatting animatedly together, both smiling at her. “And here we thought you were hiding in shame,” Jenson teases.

She doesn’t smile and he quickly turns serious. “You okay after the shunt?”

“No big issues,” she shrugs.

“Sort things out with Seb and the team?” Lewis asks, his eyes sparkling at her.

“There was a heated argument in private following our public spat and a sombre briefing,” she responds and for a moment her chest swells painfully at the memory of being blamed. “Do you think it was my fault?” Lewis and Jenson share a look both reluctant to respond.

No one saw it like her. Was she doing the same thing that Seb had done in Turkey in her first season? She swallows and looks past both of them. “It’s okay to fuck up you know Aston,” Jenson tells her after a long moment.

“It was just an error in judgement,” Lewis adds. “We’ve all done it. Don’t beat yourself up.” Lewis is called away then leaving her with just Jenson.

And Jenson reaches for her then, “Come here,” he says gently and he hugs her to him. His arms folding around her tightly as she rests her chin on his shoulder. “This race will be better.” She stares at him blankly and he smiles at her, “Promise.”

He lets her go and she forces a smile. “I have to head to the PC.”

“How I wish I have a seat there today,” he sighs.

“Yeah, I bet you’d have loved that,” she answers a grin creeping to her face. “I will be on my best behaviour, don’t worry about that.”

 

In the press conference she picks at the edge of the desk as she sits next to Seb, both refusing to look at each other.

“Sebastian and Laura, any agreement reached on who’s to blame for last Sunday’s incident between you?” James Allen finally gets around to asking the question most people were waiting to hear the answer too.

Sebastian cuts her off to answer. “I think we’ll have differing opinions.”

She presses her lips together, forcing out the words that you were wrong never easy. “It was my fault, and we’ll move on.” She could feel Seb stiffen next to her and see the look of surprise out of the corner of her eye but she drops her head.

The moment the press get their chance they’re drilled about their spat which both blow off as in the heat of the moment. “You say and do things when you’re angry,” Sebastian continues, “We’ll move on and not dwell on anything that happened. This is a new race.”

She stares at him knowing when he said that he meant everything that had happened. She was a little relieved but she doubted that anything would close the huge cavern that existed between them. Even now, sitting a few feet away from him, she’d never felt more distant from anyone. And for a moment she didn’t want that, she’d never had to deal with a teammate she didn’t get on with. She wanted to reach out and touch him and apologise but she would never do that, and she folds her hands together tightly.

The moment the press conference is over Sebastian catches her arm which she rips from his grip. “Can we talk?”

“What about?” Her tone was colder than she intended.

“What you said back there- ”

“If you’re expecting an apology just because I said I was wrong, you won’t get one,” she snaps. Jogging down the steps as they emerge into the paddock, in her rush to put space between her and her estranged teammate, she forgets her knee. She nearly crumbles as her knee gives way and she gasps more out of surprise than pain. Seb grabs her keeping her upright as the brief wave of pain passes..

“Are you okay?”

Again she shakes him off her. “Fine. Just bruised from the shunt.” She straightens up. “I’ll beat you this weekend,” she promises. “And the next. Every race just because I know it must hurt to be beaten by a girl.” He looks like he might say something but she turns and walks ahead quickly ignoring the painful fact that her knee was getting worse today, not better.

 

*          *        *

 

“Let’s go,” Laura looks up from her water, wincing at the sight of Phil, her trainer.

“Sorry?” He’d surprised her; she had, up till that point, successfully avoided him for most of the day. Lillian next to her, sensing that something was wrong frowns.

“Sebastian said you were bruised, I want to make sure you’re good to drive.”

She sucks in her breath, her eyes scanning around for him. Laura was going to kill him. “I’m fine,” she answers.

“Are you?” Lillian asks, eyes narrowing. “You said you were fine?”

She tries not to be irritated at her sister’s worry as she repeats, “I am fine.”

He smiles at her. “I know that. Come for a jog, we can talk.”

Knowing that arguing would only raise suspicion she just gets up and follows him. They head out and go for a walk, and she was pleased that at least it wasn’t a jog. It was clear to Laura that Phil really did want to talk because she can see him attempt to start off a conversation but then shake his head. She had no plans to help him out; she didn’t want to talk to anyone in the team. She felt very alone and it wasn’t just Seb she was going to prove that she was better than – it would be all of them.

“You’ve barely said anything to anyone since you arrived this morning,” he finally speaks. “Ignoring Seb fine, but you’re avoiding me like the plague and a few people commented that you were unusually quiet.”

She doesn’t answer and Phil just sighs. “So, you were blamed, you can’t hate everyone that blames you.”

“Blame is one thing,” she answers stopping. “Support is another.”

“The team supports you Laura, you’re just upset.”

She shrugs, her hands sliding into the pockets of her jeans as she stops. “Thanks for the jog, and the concern, but I’m fine. And when I get pole on Saturday, maybe Sebastian won’t look so wondrous.” She walks off ignoring Phil who called after her to wait; she was just pleased he didn’t follow.

 

*         *        *

 

Gala’s and fancy events were just part in parcel of Monaco. Sebastian himself had never much cared for them, or dressing up, but tonight…. he found that his gaze would drift back constantly to his teammate and he hated himself for it. But there were few occasions where he’d seen her dress up, though he did have one photo on his phone of her dressing down – that damn picture from her photoshoot. And while he had no idea about fashion there was the undeniable truth he thought she looked incredible, that he had an opportunity to admire her figure that was nearly always hidden under loose fitting team shirts or racing overalls. Tonight though, he could see exactly how slender she was and reinforce his belief that she did in fact have a nice ass in the figure hugging dress she’d chosen.

To think that a week ago he had slept with her, so pissed and furious he hadn’t actually noticed her, just determined to hurt her and pour out his frustrations; there had been nothing slow about the coupling, nor had he taken the time to admire or savour any of it. But tonight, it was like looking at another person, this wasn’t his teammate, the person he feared would beat him, nor was she the person he’d fucked angrily at the last race. She didn’t look like a racing driver, she could be anyone and when she turns her eyes catching his she gives him a tight smile, one that he returns, as they lock eyes, simply still.

The moment though is broken when Sebastian turns away shaking his head slightly to clear it. He was working out his issues though with Laura Aston – he didn’t like Aston the F1 driver but he fancied Laura the girl. He turns around to seek her out again and when his eyes relocate her he heads in her direction only to be stopped when he’s beaten to her.

He is unable to keep the scowl from his face as Jenson stands next to her. She grins at him and something wells in him that could possibly be jealousy as Jenson touches her arm, her back, her hand. And she lets him, leans towards him, laughs with him. Aston could forever deny that she and Jenson weren’t more than friends but there was more than friendship there and right now it was obvious to a room full of hundreds, even if he was the only person taking notice.

Tearing his gaze from his teammate he leaves the room needing air. He hoped this night was nearly over he wanted to focus on the race and go back to hating Aston.

 

*          *        *

 

She’d strapped her knee tightly before the first practice. With it being her left leg, she was going to have to use it to slam the brakes. How she wished this was Monza or Spa. Standing in the garage she carefully climbs into the car for her first run, time for the truth.

She carefully eases herself into the cockpit and the moment the car roars to life she feels better instantly. Her installation lap though is an utter mess. She misses her braking points clenching her teeth as she refuses to answer her radio as her engineer asks what the issue is. The issue was her knee had no strength and she couldn’t brake. She desperately spends the next lap working out how to get around her knee, using her right foot when she could, but it was still producing messy times.

In the garage she doesn’t take off her helmet, tears of frustration more than for the sharp pain. Getting out of the car is done gingerly. She mutters an apology to her race engineer for the messy lap. Angrily she notes that Seb is currently at the top of the times as he streaks around the circuit. She hated him, this was his damn fault even if he didn’t realise.

Her next run, a longer stint is much better. Sheer determination powers through the pain, to the point where she completely compartmentalises it. Her times climb to within a hundredth of a second of Seb’s. With the session ending she heads back to the pits and when the engine cuts out she climbs from the car, forgetting her knee. She jumps down and immediately her knee gives out and she slams to the ground. She sits there stunned as she lets the pain back in. She’d forgotten and she leans back against the car as her mechanics kneel around her. Her breath hitching as she swallows her cries.

“Aston?”

“I’m fine,” she grits out struggling with her helmet. They help her to her feet as Christian comes over as she rips off her helmet. She scowls when her fall is displayed on the TV, grabbing the attention of her teammate who whips around to stare at her.

“What’s wrong?”

She doesn’t answer, just sits on the side of the car, her right leg holding her up as she hands her helmet and hans device to a pair of waiting hands.

“Bump on the knee from the accident last week,” she lies. She couldn’t deny it now, Christian was demanding an answer, and he’d get one.

“How bad?”

“I’m second on the times,” she answers icily. “Not quite good enough?”

“Laura,” Christian says in a warning tone and she slams her mouth closed. “Get your knee checked by Phil.”

“I will race,” she tells him shakily. “I don’t care what you say.” Visibly limping she shakes off Phil’s help as she leaves the garage.

 

*          *        *

 

“Holy shit,” Phil says looking at her knee. “You can’t race. You shouldn’t even be standing!”

Laura’s head falls back and she fights back tears as Phil gently checks her knee over. It wasn’t the pain of prodding fingers it was the disappointment of his news. “Please tell Christian its fine,” she begs. She’d never begged anyone for anything, but she’d start now. “Please? Please?” She stares at him imploringly.

“You can’t race with the knee,” he tells her again. “How the hell did you get the car to second in the times?” She buries her face in her hands and cries. None of this was fair. Phil squats down next to her, his gray eyes looking at her sympathetically. “You race with this knee, you could cause permanent damage. You won’t last the whole weekend.”

“I will beat him,” she sobs. “I will.”

“Not with this knee you won’t, you won’t beat anyone,” Phil argues. “You won’t last the race!”

“Just sit me out for practices. I’ll use Seb’s setup and I’ll just do quali and the race,” she decides to reason. “I’ll stay off it, I’ll keep ice on it. The swelling goes down; it’s not even that bad! The fact that it’s blue is just from earlier bruising which is already fading! It’ll be fine for tomorrow afternoon.”

“Laura your health is more important,” Phil sighs.

She grabs his shirt. “You don’t let me race and I swear you’ll damage me in a worse way.”

He stares at her, her eyes filled with unshed tears as she continued to clutch at his shirt. “We’ll see how it is tomorrow. I’ll give you strict instructions and I’ll tell Christian to stick someone else in the car till qualifying.”

She hugs him. “Thank you,” she whispers.

“No promises about the racing though,” he warns her. “Your knee can’t be swollen and if you can’t hop fifty times on it, you don’t race. Deal?”

She’d take that. “Deal.” She releases him and he helps her up and she heads to the door as he tells her he’ll find her brother to take her back to the hotel so she can rest till tomorrow.

 

*          *        *

 

Laura was lying on the couch in her hotel suite with Lillian screeching at her and Miles as usual standing quietly next to her. She knew Lillian cared but could she care somewhere else? Not wanting to aggravate the situation she lets her have her say as she fiddles with her ice pack. She was pleased how much the swelling had gone down in the last few hours.

All she needed to do was her 50 hops. She could block the pain with concentration, she just prayed that tomorrow she had the strength to complete Phil’s stupid test. She returns her attention to Lillian who’d fallen silent and she blinks wondering if she’d been asked a question. If she asked ‘what’ it would just lead to another lecture.

A knock on her hotel door saves her and Miles hurries to answer it just wanting to diffuse the situation. “Jenson,” he smiles almost relieved at the unexpected arrival while Laura perks up immediately at her visitor. She smiles at him as Lillian curses as she’s dragged out by Miles, leaving Jenson alone with Laura.

“Hey,” she says relieved to be with someone who wouldn’t yell.

“Red Bull released a press statement saying you may not possibly race due to an injury from your shunt last week…” The worry in his eyes is clearly evident as he walks over to lift the ice pack off her knee. “That looks…” He hadn’t seen anything quite so colourful. “What did you do to it?”

“Twisted it wrong,” Laura shrugs. “It’s not too bad, the pain is gone now. I’m hoping to be okay for qualifying tomorrow, I’ll get checked out again before getting in the car.”

“That’s not from your shunt with Seb,” Jenson purses his lips. “When did you do that?”

She sucks in her breath flashing back to Seb as he fucked her. “I fell after the race. Landed wrong.”

His hand slides underneath her knee and he draws it up slowly before dropping his head to kiss the bruises. “You shouldn’t race,” he tells her quietly.

“Please don’t say that,” she whispers. She’d hoped he’d understand.

“I get it,” he responds his eyes meeting hers. “But you have nothing to prove.”

“I always have something to prove,” she retorts. “I’ll always have something to prove because I’m a woman. I will race tomorrow and I will win.”

His hand rubs her bare leg, warmth radiating from his touch. “You’re too stubborn for your own good.” But he doesn’t say anything else and she shuffles aside to make room for him.

“Stay?” She shouldn’t ask that, tempt things, but right now she doesn’t care. Jenson moves to lie down and she moves to curl against him. She carefully slides her injured knee over him while her head falls to his shoulder as he hugs her.

His hand plays with her hair, commenting that it was getting really long. She doesn’t say anything but enjoys him being there and his gentle stroking slowly sends her to sleep and drifting off as he presses his lips to the top of her head.

 

*          *        *

 

When she wakes up she’s alone the bed cold and the room dark. She drags her hand where Jenson had been letting her mind wander over what they were. She rarely pondered the question because sometimes the answer scared her. She wanted more with Jenson just not at the risk of friendship. Her fingers scrunch the bedspread angrily as Jenson’s image is replaced by Sebastian’s.

A scowl forms on her face and with a sudden spurt of energy she sits up, determined to make sure Seb knew she was better than him. She gets to her feet; carefully testing the weight on her knee which she finds isn’t too bad. Limping a little she goes to get changed and wearing her gym gear she heads out of the room. She had no intention of pounding miles on the treadmill she wanted to test its strength.

It was late-ish so she was happy that meant the gym was empty. She goes to the treadmill and sets a slow speed to walk it loosen it a little before she gets off to stretch. She can’t bend her left back like she can with her right one and she doesn’t push it. Making her way to the weights, she sets herself up to do leg presses. She can do them with the help of her right, but she knows immediately that if she was to push on her left that she’d over do it, pain creeping in when she attempts it.

She stops and sits there fighting back a wave of despair. Her knee wasn’t great; it was okay but not great. She wondered if that was good enough for Phil. She wasn’t sure how she’d cope if she was made to sit out the race, not this weekend.

 

*          *        *

 

Phil folds his arms as watches Laura hop and jump through his obstacle course. He would think she was on pain killers, but her brother had assured him that wasn’t the case. Her knee, while still visibly bruised had gone down in swelling. Laura stops and grins at him when she does the course.

“Gold star?”

“Come back,” he orders. His eyes fixed to her knee waiting to see it buckle. Scans and x-rays at the med centre showed no physical damage only aggravated bruising.

“Any pain?”

She shrugs. “Minimal.” She knew if she said none he wouldn’t believe her. “It wasn’t that bad yesterday, I shouldn’t have jumped from the car the way I did.”

“Are you sure you want to race?”

“Yes.”

“Because you can do the course, but Laura if there is any pain, if you’re lying about this, it’s only going to cause further damage,” he warns seriously.

“You want me to sign something?”

He shakes his head and moves to wrap an arm around her shoulder. “I’ll let Christian know, he’ll be pleased. He wasn’t happy you’d kept this from him.”

“Like I said,” Laura repeated for the millionth time, “It wasn’t that bad.” It was her millionth lie. Phil nods and lets her go telling her to get changed and she walks to sit down. She rubs her knee knowing that while it ached it, it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it had been.

That afternoon, knee strapped she leans on the bench as she sucks on the end of her ear plugs for her radio. She was surprised at how good her knee felt. She hadn’t even taken pain killers because she wanted to see how she’d go for the next hour. Phil seemed encouraged by that response and feeling relieved she was happy to be here as she pulls her race suit up.

“How’s the knee?”

She looks at Seb coldly. “Capable of beating you.”

He looks down at her legs, even though covered. “What did you do to it? That wasn’t because you ran into me.”

She blinks at him as he looks up at her. She opts against answering reaching for her balaclava after zipping up. Seb shrugs and does the same, walking away. Pulling on her helmet she moves to get into the car happy she wasn’t limping and feeling positive. Pole position here it comes!

 

*          *        *

 

Seb was on pole and while she was second she was more than irritated. Her knee gave her no issues, there was no reason; the thought that he was simply faster just not a possibility. She refuses to shake his hand, not that he exactly offered as they both line up to be weighed. She heads to the press conference with Seb and Lewis as he congratulates her. She can only mumble her thanks.

“Laura,” James Allen speaks as he addresses her. “P2 for tomorrow, you must be pleased.”

“I thought I’d done the maximum today to get pole, but clearly not. I could be happier but I’ll focus on the race tomorrow. The important thing is that the team has two cars on the front row, and that’s because of all the hard work they put in,” she answers.

“Any concerns about a repeat of Spain being tucked up behind Sebastian?”

She smiles wearily, aware that Seb on her left shifted at the question. “If Sebastian wants to crash out himself, that’s fine by me, but I have no plans to be involved.” There are a few chuckles and a scowl from Seb at her which she shrugs off.

The moment the press conference is over she heads out to fulfil the rest of her media commitments aware that her knee twinged slightly as she stepped on it. A twinge though, is better than pain so she pushes it aside, wishing it was Sunday already.

 

*          *        *

 

“I don’t like this,” Lillian states as Laura gets ready for the race.

She carefully plaits her hair as she sighs.

“Tell her Miles,” Lillian orders.

“The knee is better than ever,” Laura cuts in. “I’m going to win.”

“Or not,” Lillian argues. “You need sense not just stubbornness Laura. If you’re knee is sore at all…”

“Want me to go do Phil’s course again? I haven’t take anything for it and I feel good! There’s no pain Lillian!” She snaps at her sister who in turn slams her mouth closed and glared.

“Well for your sake I hope I’m not going to be saying I told you so at the end of the weekend,” Lillian says after a long moment.

Laura, tired of the same conversation leaves her motorhome to make her way to the pits. She stops to chat with Heikki K, dawdling as she does, hoping to kill some time. She was itching to start.

On the grid she bounces on the balls of her feet next to Phil and her engineer going over last minute prep. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so desperate to drive, this went beyond normal. Drinking water her eyes were fixed on Seb on the side of the grid who was talking to Marko. Seb was all she cared about and she was determined to beat him off the line.

When he looks up and their eyes meet she doesn’t duck away, she stares back, silently promising him that she would beat him. His smile makes her blink; not expecting it and she turns away annoyed before moving to the car. She climbs in, twisting her leg a little to check her knee. It was good. Two pairs of hands do her belts up swiftly as her stomach turns excitedly. This was it.

The warm up lap takes too long. The lights seem to be on the longest countdown as her car screams to life and then they’re out. Her start was perfect, her car darts away from the line as she leaps forward to level with Seb. She inches in front and turns and he doesn’t give an inch as they go through the corner side by side.

She had the inside line and Seb has to let her through. There’s no joy though, there’s just focus. And each lap she treats like qualifying, desperate to increase her lead over the other Red Bull that wouldn’t get out of her mirrors. He attempts to dive up the inside too many times, race through the tunnel side by side, but each time she manages to keep the lead.

A third of the way through stamping on the brakes she feels a twinge in her knee. And as each lap progresses from that point the twinge grows till it becomes a dull throb when she pits halfway through. She keeps her lead, just. But the car behind her isn’t Seb anymore, it’s Lewis. She wasn’t sure where Seb had gone, but he wasn’t in front and that was all that matter.

Her margin over Lewis was slightly more comfortable than with Seb giving her a moment to breathe as she tries to forget her knee as she braked hard. The pain though bites harder and harder and as she drives the car over the kerbs at the swimming pool she finds herself gasping at the jarring it causes. It’s at la Rascasse that when she slams the brakes she feels something in her knee, its searing pain and she overshoots the corner, fucking it up as she screams from agony.

Breathing was almost impossible for one second as she steers the car back to the circuit nearly collecting her team mate. He moves back in front of her and furious, she chases back after him desperately attempting to block the pain. There were still ten laps left but the intensity of the pain was growing and she knew she’d done something terrible to her knee.

Tears blur her vision as she uses the brake each time, somewhere in her head there’s a voice that pleads for her to just stop but Sebastian was now in front of her. The nose of her car all over the back of him and she could swear the pain eased a fraction with that knowledge as she attempted to find a way passed him. With two laps to go she takes him through the swimming pool and her heart soars. The last lap while Lewis was close she knew the win was gone and while she wanted it, knowing that the winner wasn’t Seb, it was okay.

Seeing the chequered flag was relief and she follows Lewis to park the car next to him. Her knee the immediate focus the moment the car shuts off. She doesn’t get out straight away, she just gasps for air to try and manage the pain. Pulling herself together she lifts herself out, very conscious to put no weight on her left leg at all.

Lewis comes over to hug her, bouncing with excitement as Seb shakes his hand and he squeezes her shoulder, the light touch cutting through her focus. Her left leg taking weight as she struggles with her helmet and for a moment she swears she’ll pass out. The sudden panic she can’t stand not phasing her as she stays in the same spot.

Lewis comes back to her. “You okay?”

To focus on his voice was effort. “Knee,” she forces out, her breathing laboured as he immediately loops an arm around her waist and he helps her, trying to hide her discomfort as she keeps her face still. He helps her up the stairs as Seb grabs her other arm to assist asking her if she was okay since she hadn’t gone to the team. She doesn’t answer because she thinks she might cry if she stops focusing.

She stands on the top of the steps, her left leg tucked behind her right as she stares blankly ahead. The pain grows and there are waves of blackness and she wobbles. Lewis’s hand reaches to steady her as he looks across at her worriedly while the anthem plays.

She has a wild thought that passing out might be the answer but then she realises there are crowds. She accepts her trophy, shaking hands with the prince before she grabs the champagne to spray. This was her best ever finish and she had no desire to celebrate, her accomplishment for the race swallowed by pain as she stays in the one place.

Lewis leaves her side and she doesn’t move, Seb putting his champagne down to grab her the moment she moves to sink down. “What’s wrong?” His voice is low.

“I need to sit,” she tells him desperately. “I need to sit.” She clutches his arm tightly, begging him to let her sit.

“In a minute,” he promises holding her tighter. “Just wait a minute.”

There were photos and she feels far away as Lewis holds her upright. She’s dragged off the stairs and away, not caring who saw. In the corridor outside the press conference, Seb and Lewis lean her against the wall. Lewis was talking to someone calling for a doctor as Seb attempted to lower her to the ground.

“Breathe,” he orders.

She’d felt nothing like this in her whole life. The blood was draining from her face and when Seb lightly touches her injured knee she screams. It was blood curdling causing the hurrying medics to bolt towards her. She wanted to pass out, wanted to escape but she can’t, the world just folds and unfolds as Miles skids to her side from somewhere.

Seb’s hand is gone and there is a medic as her race overalls are cut off her knee. She grabs at the medic, “Don’t touch it! Don’t touch it!” She couldn’t deal with that kind of pain again tears pouring down her face unashamedly.

“I’m going to put a brace on your leg,” he tells her calmly as Miles holds her steady.

Miles moves to her ear whispering to her frantically, “Just pass out. Let go.” He squeezes her hand hard staring at her terrified expression. He nods at her as her leg is grabbed when the pain comes there is no scream, just comforting darkness.

 

*          *        *

 

When she wakes up the pain has waned. It was still excruciating but the edge was gone. Her eyes open and she felt dizzy as she sees Horner, Phil, Miles and Lillian talking to two doctors with x-rays. She shifts not quite knowing what was going on till her leg jars and she gasps loudly, pain exploding from her knee.

Lillian is next to her instantly, her eyes bloodshot. “Hey,” she whispers.

Laura wants to apologise to her but she doesn’t instead lets Lillian squeeze her hand. The doctor moves towards her.

“What happened with the knee?”

For one moment she had the absurd response of answering that it was injury caused while fucking Seb but commonsense flooded through the haze for her to swallow the response. “It was fine in the race. Nothing, there was a twinge…” She closes her eyes remembering. “I overshot that corner, something happened. I was going to stop…”

“The ligaments are badly torn,” the doctor explains. “I know that checks were done, but you shouldn’t have raced.”

“It was _fine_ ,” she whispers furiously. “It was fine when I started.”

Christian moves towards her, coming into sight from the back of the room. “Why didn’t you stop at the corner?”

She tilts her head back as she fights tears. It seemed petty to say because Seb passed her, but that was the reason. “It was _my_ race,” she chokes out. “ _Mine!_ ”

“How you finished I’ll never know,” the doctor says when Christian sighs and shakes his head. “But the damage is going to have to be repaired with surgery.”

Laura’s head snaps from Christian’s disappointed expression to the doctor. “Surgery?”

“You’ll be looking at a 2 to 3 month recovery, depending on how fast you heal.”

Swallowing she doesn’t speak feeling like she’d been punished harshly for something she felt she hadn’t even risked. Her knee had felt fine. Now she was going to miss up to six races. She blinks away tears and Christian tells her to rest up, she was being transferred to a nearby hospital for surgery tonight and he’d deal with the press statements. The doctor leaving as well.

Alone with her siblings she sobs, “I’m sorry. But it was fine, it was fine…”

“It’ll be okay,” Lillian assures her as Laura cried.

“You’ll have the surgery and your knee will get back to what it was and you will continue to kick butt,” Miles adds. “It will be okay.”

She didn’t believe either of them. “Please leave,” she finally whispers. “I want to be alone…” Both are hurt but they do leave and Laura lies there tears falling as her knee throbs as a constant reminder of her fuck up – which she wasn’t sure if it was sleeping with Seb or attempting a foul overtake move. Either way, this was her fault.

 

*          *        *

 

After surgery, high on pain medication Laura can swear she was floating, her injured knee feeling dull and heavy, the only thing keeping her grounded to the bed. She thinks this might possibly be the best medication ever. Still groggy she smiles a little unaware of the fact that she was currently not alone.

“Hey?” The murmured voice cuts through the fog and she struggles to open her eyes. Her vision is unfocused and she felt incredibly tired. “I wanted to check on you. Horner said your surgery went well…”

“Why are you whispering,” she croaks out. “Is it a secret?”

“No,” he laughs softly and it was foreign like she hadn’t heard it before. Her eyes slip closed as she feels his breath on her face. His finger strokes her face, “I was worried,” his stammered confession makes her eyes flutter open.

She forces her eyes to focus unsuccessfully as she reaches out to touch him but he grabs her hand and kisses it. She feels the rough stubble around his mouth and she relaxes as she murmurs, “I feel so good.”

Again the unfamiliar laugh comes as he touches her hair, his breath warm on the side of her face. And when she turns towards him she feels his lips brush hers and she smiles as he adds quietly, “You did good today Aston. Real good.”

She blindly leans forward to kiss him again. She’d missed this and she wondered if she might possibly be dreaming. She sighs when he kisses her again very softly and she breathes out, “Jense…” And then the warmth is gone and when she drags her eyelids open it’s only to see the back of her visitor walking out with a giant bull on his back. She drifts off confused but dreams of Spain and bull fighting.

 

*          *        *


	6. Recovery is never easy

When Laura is helped into her apartment, Miles holding the door open, she can’t muffle the loud sigh that escapes at the presence of Lillian busying herself around her apartment. “Really?” she asks them unimpressed.

“Come on,” Miles nudges her forward ignoring the comment as Lillian fluffs pillows for her. There was no way she was going to survive them both suffocating her while she recovered.

“Please don’t do this,” she begs them both. The thought she required any help with anything drove her nuts, them being here twenty-four seven was going to be intolerable. “I am quite capable of taking care of myself.”

Miles snorts and Lillian tells her bluntly, “No, you’re not.” Miles has her crutches propped up in reach and is in the midst of reminding her of all the strict doctor instructions. But she had no desires to breach any of them, she was going to follow them all perfectly – if playing by the rules was going to get her back in a car quicker she was going to do everything right down to the tiniest detail. Maybe she would accept her siblings help…

“The moment you can move more easily,” Miles says when she was comfortable, “You will be at races, you will be the poster girl for Red Bull and you will do so many media obligations you will want to smash every camera. “

Laura glares at him but says nothing.

“And you are going to smile and pretend you love it.” Miles finishes. “You have a lot to make up for.”

Laura stares at her strapped and braced leg. “Yes, it’s like I wasn’t punished enough.”

“Not denying that Laura,” Miles leans down to grab her chin. “But doesn’t change the fact that you are the one that has to pay the price. You pushed to race, you forced the team into subbing you with a lesser driver. So…”

“I’ll smile and bear it,” Laura cuts him off. She understood. Miles sighs and kisses her cheek.

“Be nice to Lillian, she’s helping you out.”

“Where are you going?” Laura pouts as her brother straightens up.

He gives her half a smile. “Conference call with your bosses to work out the details of your punishment.”

Laura presses her lips together and flops backwards as he leaves. She seemed to make everything harder for not just herself but those around her. She looks at Lillian waiting, but there’s no comment from her sister. “Really? You’re not going to add anything? I’d rather you did it now and we just get it over done with. Rip off the band aid.”

Lillian shrugs. “I get it Laura, I do. But if we’re going to talk about anything, it’s not your knee.”

“Oh?” Laura looks at her expectantly. “And what do you want to talk about?”

Her mouth flickers with a smile. “Sebastian.”

Laura freezes at the name. What the hell was there talk about? She has nothing to say to Lillian on the subject, but her sister moves to sit directly in front of her, eyes doing that thing where it was like she was trying to drag out her secrets. “Lillian, stop that,” she orders. If she could without jarring her knee, she’d lean forward and slam her hand over her eyes. “There’s nothing to talk about. I don’t like him. At all. In fact, I am pretty sure there’s no one I dislike more.”

Lillian holds up her hands as if she wasn’t going to argue that. “Completely agree Laura. You really don’t like the guy. In fact, you seem to hate him that much you were determined to jeopardise your career and get in a car with a dodgy knee to prove you’re better than him. And _that_ is what I want to talk about.”

“You want a reason?” Laura feels anger bubbling up. “You weren’t there in Spain! You didn’t hear the shit he said to me. He has _always_ had an issue with me. He has never had one comment about me that was respectful. He doesn’t think I belong and you know what? I’m going to fucking prove that he’s wrong and when I do –“

“Woah!” Lillian cuts her off. “Right, so much… _emotion_. I’m not saying you’re wrong but that’s not the vibe I get from Sebastian when I’m at the track.”

Laura sucks in her breath sharply. “Yes, Sebastian is charming and sweet and woos all the press. It’s all a damn act Lil! Don’t fall for that, I see the real him.”

“Really?” Lillian frowns. “He came to check on you after surgery, he was one of many drivers that seemed concerned. He seemed just as genuinely upset as they were. He’s just like you Lau, he wants to win, and you can be selfish and stubborn when you’re in driver mode.”

“What is the point of this conversation?” Laura asks wanting this to be over.

“Miles is right, you’re going to be forced to do press, and you maybe forced to do that with Sebastian and whichever driver has stepped up. And you really need to drop the war between you and Sebastian. The press are loving it but he’s your damn teammate, not a rival.”

Laura looks at her fingernails with great interest. She had tried to right things, he’d flatly refused that path. “I will play my part, and I’ll be the perfect team player on the side lines. But my feelings for Sebastian are not going to change.” In some ways, knowing how she felt about Sebastian was nice, a sure thing, unlike her cloudy feelings for Jenson that seemed to be a constant push and pull, dancing around each other but never moving forward.

“Fine,” Lillian sighs getting to her feet. “I’ll make lunch for us so you can take your pain killers.”

“Thanks,” Laura mutters.

 

The first race after her surgery she doesn’t attend due to the fact that she was still in quite some pain. Jenson comes around to keep her company a few days after the race. They play racing games on her PS3 as he tries to kick her boredom. He fills her in on the paddock news, telling her that right now she was what anyone would talk about. No one understands how she dragged that car to the end of the race with a bung knee to take second after getting passed Seb.

Chewing her lip Laura looks over at him. “I don’t remember the last few laps,” she confesses. “It’s all pain.”

Jenson looks back at her. “You should have stopped.”

“After the race, when I was being looked at it.” She hesitates a moment. “I would have given it all up, the second place, the race, _everything_ if it meant the pain would stop. I’ve never felt that much before and I hope I never do again.”

He smiles and touches her chin. “I think you’re the bravest person I know.” She shakes her head. And Jenson changes the subject as he looks at her propped up leg. “How’s the leg?”

“Heaven compared to after the race. The throbbing though is gone and it feels much better. Phil will be coming around next week and I’ll start doing some basic exercise to restrengthen it gently.”

“No rushing it,” he warns her.

“No intentions of going through that again,” she assures him. “But my knee was mostly fine before the race in Monaco.” It was a fear that she’d make the same mistake again. Returning to F1 too early, as much as she missed driving, she would happily miss an extra race or two if it meant she’d could avoid all that hell.

“You and Seb okay again? I heard that the scrapping between you guys was intense…”

Laura shrugs. “I didn’t speak to him after the race really. Too busy screaming to have a proper conversation. Did he look upset with third? I hope he was pissed he was beaten by an _injured_ girl.”

Jenson laughs. “No love lost there. I don’t think Seb much cared about the race, neither did Lewis. I think most of us were waiting to find out what had happened there were plenty of stories circulating afterwards. And just so you know… no one buys you were injured during your crash with Seb. Most people think you two had some fight…”

She snorts at that, but it was probably closer to the truth than her original lie. “Will you get me a glass of water?” She smiles at him politely and he does without another word forcing them to drop talking about her knee. He passes it to her with a kiss on the cheek.

“Aston?” He straightens up and looks at her seriously suddenly, as she drinks.

“What?”

The next words out of his mouth leave her reeling. “I wanted you to know I’m seeing someone…”

 

*             *          *

 

Laura leans against the wall watching as the cameras are setup, her fingers doing up the buttons of her team shirt that Lillian had helped her shrug into. This was going to be the start of a lot media, and what she understood was going to be a driver special on her, an in-depth look into her life, her career. How she felt about it had no sway on this, Miles bluntly telling her to suck it up and while Lillian had been more sympathetic, she’d hadn’t done much more than echo Miles.

“It’s not a death sentence,” Lillian says to her quietly as the three of them watched Jake Humphrey check his notes and smile at them.

“Debatable.” Laura was trying hard to suppress all the overwhelming emotions that were trying to bubble up. She was not a fan of the press, but she had avoided doing _this_. In depth discussions about her, about her life. She worried that maybe they’d scratch in just right the place, learn all her dark secrets.

"Don’t say anything you don’t want,” Lillian squeezes her arm as Laura passes her crutches and limps to the chair. Time to get this over done with. She smiles warmly at Jake, accepting the hand offered as she switches on her media face.

Listening to Jake rattle off her achievements, focus on her achievement to simply be the first woman in F1 is not new, explaining how that wasn’t enough, isn’t easy, that really it meant nothing if she couldn’t compete with them, couldn’t prove she was the same was hard to phrase. She talks about her knee, they recap on Monaco, discuss the weekend, her recovery, her feelings on Daniel Ricciardo taking her seat. All points she’s happy to discuss. She flinches, hopefully unnoticeably when finally the questions move out of direct F1 focus.

         “It’s no secret that you’re family is important, there is nearly always a sibling with you, has family been important to get where you are today?”

         “Completely,” Laura says without hesitating. “We’ve always been incredibly close and back when we were younger, we all raced, a hobby that our dad encouraged and we all took on that passion.”

         “And why are you still racing and they’re not?” he asks curiously.

         “Probably a question more for them, but passion? I never let go, I refused to stop, even when my father said enough was enough. And when he gave up asking that, he pushed me forward, backed me so completely.” There’s a pang in her chest at the memory of her father, and she knows her media face slipped, the pained smile real, a glimpse into the loss of someone important.

         “Your father was British,” Jake comments after a moment, “Is that why you chose to race under the British flag and not the Australian flag and your place of birth?”

         It takes a lot of effort to keep her eyes on Jake and not glance away at her siblings. “I spent a lot of time in Australia, my birthplace yes, and my mother was Australian. And of course, there are amazing memories I have there.” And memories that will haunt her for life, but she skips that detail. “But I spent more time in the UK and it’s more _home_.” There’s tension in her voice, she feels like they were touching far too close to pain points. “British flag yes, but Australia is still important. I like to think I get two home races.” She wants to lighten the mood.

         At least Jake switches gear then, and instead dives into something far more inappropriate, but at least she knew how to walk this road. “Let’s talk about the other British drivers – you are very close to both Jenson and Lewis.”

         “Yes, we’re all very good friends.” She knows where this is going.

         “Jenson more so?” Jake’s looking at her cheekily. “The two of you seem inseparable at times, the rumours last year of you two never ceased.”

         “Stories the press make up for something to talk about, it was clearly a slow news year,” she smile back at him. “I saw Jenson last week after the race, had a lovely lunch with him and his girlfriend.” Jake blinked at that and yes, she threw Jenson’s new relationship under a bus, but she didn’t care right now at her tiny lie. “Rumours are rumours. We’re all very good friends but there has never been anything else.”

“You and Sebastian… friends?”

A slow smile spreads on her face. “Let’s say that Sebastian and I won’t be eating lunch together, but we are professionals and pushing the team forward, that’s our priority.”

“Your made amends for Spain?”

“He hasn’t apologised, I think we have an unspoken agreement to move on.” Her head flashes back to post race, Sebastian slamming her into a wall, kissing her, fucking her. She has to clear her vision, keep her ground and not get sucked up in that moment, in front of damn cameras.

“Do you think a working relationship is really possible in an environment that is… _frosty_?”

“We don’t need to be friends to work together, and in the end, your teammate is your number one rival. Beating him is more important than having lunch together.”

“He’s a world champion, do you think you are better than him?”

No hesitation comes in her answer. “Yes. Completely.”

The interview wraps up then and she returns back to Lillian and Miles. Lillian was giving her a look and Laura was pretty sure that it was in regards to the Sebastian questions, Miles on the other hand seemed indifferent, so it can’t have been too bad. Lillian goes to say something and Laura holds up her hand not wanting to hear it as she addresses her brother. “Please tell me how much more shit I have to do?”

Miles turns his phone to show her calendar. “I just signed you up to be guest expert for the BBC at this weekend’s race.”

Laura sucks in her breath and glares at him. “Do you know how much I hate you right now?”

“More than Sebastian Vettel?” Lillian asks her with a smirk as she darts conveniently out of reach.

        

*        *        *

 

Sebastian was sitting in the Energy Station, it was the Turkish GP, Molly with him as she ran through his schedule. It wasn’t that he didn’t know that Laura was going to be here this week, he did know that, but seeing her, for the first time since Monaco still has him straighten up and Molly stops talking to see what he’d caught his attention. She wasn’t racing, she was still using crutches but she looked good, hair blonde hair loose and styled, wearing makeup. He shifts in his seat, she might be wearing a team shirt but it wasn’t quite Aston his teammate.

“I hope you’re planning to be nice,” Molly warns and he chooses to ignore her comment.

Sebastian snatches up his drink bottle, sucking furiously on the straw as his gaze hardens when she looks at him, her lips pressed together in a tight line. And he wonders if she knew, if she remembered their very brief and post Monaco encounter… their staring competition is broken when Christian steps in to hug her tightly.

“She’s doing press work?” Sebastian looks at Molly. When she confirms he asks if they have any together and there’s relief when he hears she’s doing commentary for the British press. At least they weren’t going to be thrown together. He didn’t want to deal with her this weekend, not when for the last few weeks he had struggled with being torn between recalling her pained screams after the race, and her unknowing rejection of him in favour of fucking Jenson Button.

 

*        *        *

 

She was happy to be back and walking into the paddock she grabbed by Timo from behind and she laughs at him as he gently puts her back down. “Nice accessories,” he tells her looking at her crutches.

She receives a lot of warm greetings, especially from the team. Christian hugs her hard telling her that it was good to see her looking much better. Her mechanics and engineer all seem excited to see she really was alive after having to hear all updates given to them through management.

Most of her morning is spent making rounds and catching up with people. It distracts her from the fact that she wasn’t here to race. The only person she avoids is her teammate, but that seems to be mutual. When she’s eating her lunch in the motorhome and he walks in she does meet his eyes but he doesn’t even smile at her. His gaze drifts past her like she wasn’t even there till he spies Rocky and then grins and heads to his own engineer.

Right now she wanted Lillian to see this so she can go ‘I fucking told you so’. Abandoning her lunch, she gets to her feet deciding to put distance and silence between them.

She makes her way, albeit slowly, to McLaren. Martin smiles at her brightly welcoming back his ‘spare driver’ making her grin. He points her in the direction of Lewis and Jenson who were eating lunch together and laughing about something.

She pokes Lewis in the back with one of her crutches making him jump. He turns and scrambles to his feet to hug her tightly not having had the chance to catch up with her yet. She looks over his shoulder at Jenson, both smiling awkwardly at each other.

They hadn’t said much to each other since he broke his news to her about his updated relationship status. He wanted to be honest but it had hurt, more than she thought it would. She limps to a seat and falls into it while Lewis takes her crutches to play with while her and Jenson looking everywhere but at each other. She figured this was still better than being in a room with Sebastian who clearly issues with her. At least with Jenson she knew what the problem was – his new model girlfriend.

“So how long till you’re back on track?’ Lewis asks letting Jenson take one of her crutches.

She shrugs reaching over to pick at Jenson’s pasta. “A while yet. I’m only just walking on it. I’m thinking of maybe taking the rest of the season off…”

Lewis looks surprised. “Seriously? I’m surprised you’re not fighting to get back in the car.”

“I want back in,” she assures him. “Just not at the expense of pain.”

He nods and adds, “I didn’t know you could scream like that.” She knew he didn’t mean that as a joke. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry,” she apologises. “Not how I aimed to end the day.”

“The win was yours,” he tells her.

“So I can have your trophy?”

Jenson grins when Lewis snorts.

Jenson pushes his plate towards her as she continues to pick before getting caught up in a ‘sword’ fight with Lewis. She watches them amused feeling more at home and feeling like things were spinning back into alignment with Jenson. He leaves her with Lewis to run off for an interview, but not before hugging her hard and telling her he was pleased she was back in some form. She smiles after him before proceeding to answer Lewis’s questions about her surgery and recovery.

 

*          *        *

The one thing that was good about doing presswork is it means the weekend goes fast and it distracts Laura from pining over the fact that she’s not in the damn cockpit and Daniel is driving in her place. But at least she likes Daniel, they actually get on and he promises to come and chat after the race whatever his result for the press. Not that Daniel’s offer meant she got to avoid Sebastian completely.

She was still forced to comment on his racing, something she knows she failed at being unbiased, but at least it was expected. She’s also forced to interview, albeit briefly about his race result, a third place. Calling it an interview was a farce, he gave one worded answers, stood with his arms crossed and gave literally nothing – their stiffness only seemed to delight everyone else. Laura found it took a lot of restraint to not beat her teammate over the head with her microphone.

The weekend ends with a tension between them hadn’t really existed before. It held echoes of the tension of Barcelona… it makes Laura uneasy because that had been dealt and resolved with sex. She wasn’t sleeping with Sebastian again to fix this.

 

At least with the race done, the small break between that and the next she trains, Phil beginning to push her knee. It’s not great, but it’s improving and she’s conscious not to push herself. There’s more media duties at the following race and she finds herself falling somewhat into a groove with her new weekend routine. At least till late on Friday, technical briefings done, that Sebastian unexpectedly moves to drop into a seat opposite her. So much for another weekend of them keeping away from each other.

“Sebastian,” she forces out. That weird tension between them seems to intensify and twist between them.

“How’s the knee?”

“Fine,” she shrugs not at all feeling inclined to give him any details. Her eyes fix on his water bottle he spins on the table wondering if there was a point to this conversation.

“Does it hurt?

The question catches her by surprise and she looks up and sees concern in his eyes. She has no idea what to think of that but because it seemed genuine, she opts to give him a genuine response, “Its much better, nothing like when I hurt it.”

“Good,” he nods, and she was sure she must have been mistaken when she sees relief in his face. He gets to his feet, “Good.”

“That’s it?” She looks up at him surprised.

“So sure, Aston that I don’t give a damn about anything when it comes to you.”

Laura snatches up her phone, just to have something hold, grip and she remembers that he was there after the race, had held her hand. “I’m fine Seb. I’ll be back in the car before you realise and then…”

Sebastian smiles as he cuts her off, “You’ll _race hard_?”

The reference to her tattoo, that he would only know about if he’d look at that damn photo from earlier in the season has her flush. “Yeah,” she clears her throat. “And I’ll beat you.”

“You’ll try Aston.” He walks off then and Laura wants nothing more now then to get in the damn car and kick his ass.

 

*         *        *

 

Miles hesitates before opening the door to Sebastian’s driver room. He’d searched for Laura ever since she disappeared from the garage after the race, and if she was going to hide away… he peers in and sees her sitting on the small bench hugging her knees, eyes holding unshed tears. “Hey,” he says softly slipping inside. Not driving had meant she didn't have that quiet space for herself, so she picked the best hiding place she could.

There’s relief in her eyes that he wasn’t Sebastian. “We at least I know you’re not in here waiting for Seb to comfort you.” Laura snorts before he’s giving a watery smile that quickly wavers as she fights back tears. “Hey, don’t do that,” he hurries to her side pulling her into a hard hug. “You’ll win, you’ll be back in the car before you know it.”

“Dan won, he gets in the car and his third race he gets to fucking win…” She pushes her face into Miles’ shoulder, words choked out. “It’s not fucking fair!”

“Yeah, life never is,” Miles sighs hugging his sister hard. “In a few races, you’ll be back,” he promises.

“All I want, is one damn win…”

“Yeah, and then you’ll want another,” Miles says knowingly. “And a championship… There’s _always_ going to be something.”

“I fucking hate Sebastian Vettel.”

Miles frowns as she pushes herself free of his arms. “What’s he got do with anything?”

“Everything,” Laura mutters.

“You want to get drunk tonight?” Miles asks after a moment, because he wasn’t getting between his sister and her intention of setting Sebastian up to be her arch rival. It least it was good for press interest.

“I’m seeing Jenson.”

Miles sighs. “Seriously Lau? You really going to make things more painful for yourself with something you can’t have?” Did she like inflicting pain on herself?

“We’re doing the friend thing fine,” Laura defends huffily wiping at her face.

“Bullshit.” He might not be Lillian, and yeah, he wasn’t quite so insightful, but he wasn’t blind.

“Well I don’t care –“

The door opens and Sebastian is standing there confused at finding two Aston’s in his space. Miles watches his sister barge past, smashing into Sebastian as she moves passed and Miles manages a tight smile at her teammate. “Hi,” he says awkwardly at a clearly unhappy Sebastian – he supposes it didn’t matter who beat you, you were always going to be pissed off.

“I’m not asking,” Sebastian sighs shaking his head.

“Probably best,” Miles says moving to the door that Sebastian held open for him and he walks out.

 

*         *        *

 

If everything keeps on track, if her training continues on this path, then after this race, she should be back in the car. Laura can’t wait, it has her buzzing in what should be her last race on the sidelines, and at least Miles, after some twisting from Lillian, ensured it was a weekend free from press duties. She can use the time to be with the team properly this weekend and keeps completely to Dan’s side of the garage.

Since her return to the paddock post her Monaco injury, her and Sebastian were mostly avoiding each other, and that tension between them that had been growing was worse than ever. If she dares to seek him out in the garage, watch him work, if she caught his gaze, it was… _intense_.

She wanted to have it out with him and not with words. No, she wanted to be in the car this weekend and _race_. She wanted to sort out their issues on track like they had earlier in the season. They needed a damn outlet for whatever was building. And again, she remembers Spain and she wants to scream at herself for defaulting to that one moment between them and their post-race coupling. Her breath hitches and she shoves aside the memory; it wasn’t relevant. She didn’t just miss driving an F1 car, she missed racing him. What she needed was a substitute.

Laura moves towards his side of the garage during the build up to qualifying as Sebastian was getting ready to get in the car. “Let’s have a race,” she states, and he looks at her surprised.

“You’re not driving this weekend,” he states his brow creasing.

She gives him a half smile. “I was thinking more of the old fashion way – a foot race.”

“You want to have a running race?” He frowns, not quite following.

“Yes. It’ll be like beating you in a race,” she explains, and his lips immediately turn up in a smirk at her.

“You won’t win,” he states. “I’m not the one with the fucked-up knee.”

For a moment she has to bite her tongue to snap at him that was actually his fault, but the automatic response is swallowed. “Then you shouldn’t be worried,” she smiles. “So, what do you say after debriefs for qualifying we have a race?”

“Okay,” he nods slowly smiling back at her. “We’ll have a race.”

Sebastian is called, and Laura lets him hurriedly get ready for qualifying and she leans on the bench at the back of the garage flexing her injured knee which was nearly back to 100%. She should get to race in a fortnight and she couldn’t wait but, in the meantime, she had something to beat Sebastian at.

 

*        *        *

 

Sebastian sees Aston stretching in front of the RBR entrance and he walks over to her. He was looking forward to whipping her ass, even if the odds of winning were stacked in his favour. “Ready?” he greets.

“Yes,” she grins at him.

“You sure about this? You knee is okay?”

“Please don’t pretend to care,” she rolls her eyes at him.

And Seb purses his lips not fighting her. “Where are we racing?”

“The track hotel and back,” she answers. “Can you manage that?”

“Easily,” he shrugs.

Both of them take up position, and then without warning she’s gone. He curses and chases after her, knowing he should have seen that coming. There were still people around and both of them dodge the thinning crowds as Aston keeps a few metres in front of him.

Approaching the check point turnstiles, Aston swipes her access as Sebastian easily clears them, now neck and neck the two of them push harder. They both skid into the lobby much to the amusement and confusion of F1 personnel and press before they turn and head back.

They’re going against the flow on the way back. And Laura being slightly smaller has more luck getting through closing the small lead Sebastian had pulled out. They both bolt passed Christian who shouts at them, and Jenson who seemed bewildered as both Red Bull drivers bolted past.

Laura jumps the turnstiles on the way back into the paddock, her foot clipping the top which sees her nearly go sprawling but she recovers. But her stumble was enough to give Vettel the clear lead. Sebastian’s hand slams the side of the RBR energy station well before hers. He turns around leaning on it and catching his breath Laura falls next to him.

“If you knee is so good why aren’t you racing?” He gasps at her.

“No one believes me,” she returns a little surprised he wasn’t gloating.

“You cheated,” he states as they move inside both getting their water bottles.

“Who cares, you won,” she mutters.

“Just thought I’d point out the fact that if you’d won it wouldn’t have counted,” he tells her firmly. She rolls her eyes and looks around to see that the motorhome was mostly deserted. “So, is there a prize for winning?”

They grab at their water bottles, both drinking before she asks, “What do you want?”

And then Sebastian is recalling in perfect detail slamming her up against the wall in Spain, remembering exactly how she felt around him. His body immediately reacting as Aston raises her eyebrows.

“I can make a paper medal thing you can wear around your neck. You can tell Bernie you support his medal idea,” she grins.

Sebastian snorts and then realises that they were having a conversation that wasn’t an argument. “We should get out of here,” he tells her. “Want to race back?”

“But I’ll win and you’ll call me a cheat,” she answers as both move to grab their things. Slipping on her backpack, Laura looks up when the lights flick off and the motorhome plunges into darkness. “Well that’s a rude way to get people to leave,” she says aloud, and she can hear Sebastian let out a short laugh and she heads in that direction.

She bumps into him, her eyes still adjusting and his hand wraps around her forearm. “Ready to go?”

His thumb flicks across her inner elbow and she shivers. “Yeah…” But she doesn’t want to move enjoying the warmth he was creating and the tingling sensation.

While Sebastian couldn’t see her face, the fact that she wasn’t pulling away was enough of a reason to not stop. He moves closer his fingers now running up and down the inside of her forearm. His head drops down and he can hear her breathing when he moves closer. She lifts her face, her nose bumping his lightly as his name falls from her lips almost inaudibly.

He kisses her, and she immediately returns it. They pull apart, pause for the briefest moment, and then their lips meet again. This time they’re kissing furiously, arms coming around the other as they let go. Neither of them considers where they were, or the fact that the mostly dark RBR motorhome wasn’t really a shield. Her backpack is shoved off her, so he can hold her properly, his hands trailing up and down her back as they continue to make out. One of his hands is buried in her hair so he can pull her head back to deepen the kiss. And Laura doesn’t fight back, she lets him take it.

And then Seb feels his control slip their kiss turning almost desperate as they begin to turn slowly in the dark. They blindly search for a chair, a wall… _something_. Her leg connects with a table and she’s lifted on it, her legs widening so Seb can step between them.

The lights turning back on is as blinding as their panic, both flying apart.

“Holy shit!”

Both of them turn in horror at Rocky standing there and all the blood drains from Laura’s face as Sebastian is completely frozen staring at his engineer.

“Well, this explains a lot,” Rocky almost looks amused before his hand kills the lights again and then simply walking out.

“Fuuuuck,” Sebastian breathes out in the empty room.

Grabbing her bag, Laura says nothing and she shrugs on her backpack despite her shaking her hands. And then, with whatever dignity she had left she flees.

 

*         *        *


	7. All Our Indifferences

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See! Not abandoned!  
> So sorry for the long delay between posts. I have been struggling with a general lack of interest in writing but it's slowly returning.
> 
> Beta-ed by the wonderful @formula1isfast

 

There have been times in Sebastian’s life where he has not wanted to be somewhere so badly he’d pay anything, generally that was due to media commitments, but right now it was to not be here, in the damn energy station and to do this.

“Sebastian.”

“Rocky,” Sebastian answers stiffly from the small table that he had moments before been sharing with Molly.

“Sebastian,” Rocky repeats this time with a shit-eating grin.

Sebastian was beginning to wonder if he needed a race engineer, maybe he could do the race without one, just have Rocky removed so he didn’t have to have this conversation. “Rocky,” this time he says it quietly, pleading with him to drop it, except the other man’s eyes dart away from his and towards the doors and his smug expression only grows. He doesn’t need to turn around to know Aston must have arrived at the track. “Don’t, just don’t,” he begs, Rocky however ignores him.

“Laura,” Rocky greets her with far too much glee and Sebastian drops his face to his hands because, just fuck this.

“Rocky,” Laura says politely.

“Sebastian,” Rocky says pointedly at him and Sebastian snaps his head up to give him the finger before he dares to glance at his teammate. She actually looks embarrassed, face flushed and he’s not sure he’s seen that before.

“Aston,” Sebastian forces out with a smile.

“Sebastian,” Laura returns in an overly sweet voice before, her eyes never quite meeting his before she keeps walking.

“I hate you,” Sebastian hisses at his engineer.

Rocky is completely unphased by his words. “She’s racing in a fortnight,” he comments it so casually like this might be small talk. It wasn’t. “Were you negotiating with her about her support for the rest of the season?”

Sebastian can feel his face heat up. “No,” he realises the moment he answers he should have kept his mouth closed but it’s too late and Rocky actually clasps his hands together excitedly. “It wasn’t anything,” he adds furiously. “We’re not talking about this, you are dropping this because it’s not anything!”

Rocky gets to his feet so casually, smile only widening. “Seb,” his hand falls on his shoulder, almost as if it was meant to comforting, “You have literally made the last half of this season a must watch.”

“Fuck you,” Sebastian shoves Rocky’s hand off him, his engineer walking away with a skip in his step. He wants to scream after him that it was nothing, it didn’t mean anything, she was with Jenson fucking Button, but he keeps silent. This was Aston’s fault, 100% Aston’s fault.

 

*         *        *

“Dan gave you the keys back?” Miles asks his sister.

Laura blinks coming out of her daze to stare at him. “Huh?” They were meant to be having dinner together, but her head was anywhere but here.

“What is wrong with you today?” Miles presses gently.

“Nothing,” she tries to brighten herself up, but her brother’s frown only deepens so she assumes she fails. She’d tried to avoid everyone today at the track, but there’d been a race, she could only go so far. She spent the race on the pit wall which had provided not just herself a distraction, but also fucking Rocky who had spent what felt like the whole day giving her looks that said, ‘I know what you did’. At least her embarrassment has finally faded, and she was now stuck firmly in a place of ‘what the fuck did I do?’

Her brother suggests having Lillian attend the next race, extra support, celebrate her return to the track and as nice as that sounds, it has her squirm in her seat because she doesn’t need her sister analysing her life anymore than what she already did. After all the flak that she had given Lillian about her life choices, she really didn’t need Lillian working out she’d lost her own marbles. What she needed was to sort her head out and put her focus on the only thing that mattered – racing.

 

*         *        *

 

It was early, and it was cold. But she didn’t care as she made her way to P1 on the grid. She was aware that Phil was following her somewhere in the light fog. When she gets there she stretches, pulling her legs behind her before moving into a starting position.

She looks up and when she hears Phil’s voice she springs up. She flies forward, her feet hitting the tarmac as she runs. Each time her left foot coming down, with no pain or twinges, slowly grows her confidence as she runs harder, faster. She could definitely do this weekend, she’d run last race weekend without an issue, but it felt even stronger now.

It felt so good to move, to run. It was nearly as good as driving. It had taken seven weeks to be at this point, but she was finally back. She planned to run the whole circuit, flat out. Her breathing and pounding feet all falling into rhythm as she closes her eyes for a moment. Letting herself get lost, to free her mind… only that last time she ran…. Her eyes snap back open when she sees images of Sebastian, recalling in far too much detail kissing him, feeling desperate for _more_.

Well fuck. So much for having moved on in a fortnight. Clearing her head is impossible from that point. Her run feels ruined. Another reason to hate Sebastian Vettel.

 

When she makes it back to the pits, hot, sweaty and legs aching in that pleasant way, Miles had finally made it to the track. She smothers him with a sweaty cuddle before he ruins what was meant to be a pretty lowkey day for her. “You and Sebastian are doing a piece together for German TV.”

Laura chokes on her water. “What? Why?”

“Because it’s your job and no I can’t get you out of it. And yes, Molly said Sebastian is having his own tantrum so stop fucking pouting. You haven’t done anything together this season so once won’t kill you…” He adds under his breath, “Well maybe just Sebastian.”

“I’m not doing it,” Laura shrugs. Done. Simple.

“Little sister, you are going to play nice with your teammate.” Miles grabs her chin sharply. “And don’t fuck anything up. You get three weeks off in a few days, so suck it up.”

Laura pushes his hand away angrily. What did she do to piss off the universe?

 

*         *        *

She’d never hated PR as much as she did right now. It was a hike they were doing with their respective trainers and a camera crew and reporter – a fitness segment or something. Christian had ordered them to play nice and show a different side of themselves and not the racing aspect. The word ‘team building’ had made both her and Sebastian flinch.

“Smile,” Phil orders as they stand at the base of a local hiking trail. Laura forces a huge fake smile that has Phil roll his eyes. “Say something nice about your teammate.”

“Hypocrite,” she responds instantly.

“God,” Phil groans. “You do know there is plenty of shit written about the two of you, don’t make today worse.”

“Want me to pretend he is my best mate?”

“I won’t hold my breath,” he mutters as Heikki, Seb’s trainer joins him, Sebastian remaining as far away as possible. At least they were agreeing on keeping as much space between each other as possible.

She stares at Seb who looked bored waiting to start. His eyes meet hers and he purses his lips moving to start and she lets him go, happy for him to lead. Sebastian is very friendly with the press, with an easy humour that makes her catch herself smiling at some of his jokes. She and Phil trail behind as Heikki and Seb lead the way on their hike.

She answers her questions, keeping things light and dodging any direct questions asking her opinion of her team mate. She was going to play the game as expected. Seb swings them left and off their designated path. She frowns. “Where are you taking us?”

“Somewhere better,” he replies turning around to look at her. “Don’t you trust me?”

She snorts. “No.” Sebastian rolls his eyes.

When Sebastian stops it’s at an edge of a ten-metre cliff not long after, she walks to the edge and sees a perfectly blue lake below. “You know about this spot?” She looks surprised.

“Yes,” he answers simply kicking off his shoes and undoing his jacket. “Strip.”

“You wish,” she retorts but she does take off her shoes.

“I don’t like this,” Phil says immediately as Heikki shrugs holding Seb’s things as his driver stands there in his shorts. “You’re knee is only just recovered; a broken neck is going to take longer.”

Laura ignores him, and not to be outdone, Laura strips to a singlet top and her own shorts. She knew the cameras would definitely still be filming but she doesn’t care. Seb grins at her and he holds out his hand. She shakes her head at him and then Seb rushes towards the edge without her and she watches him soar over before bombing into the water below. He resurfaces after a moment. Sebastian just proved the water was deep enough, she wasn’t risking he neck.

Unable to resist an adrenaline rush, she grins backing up before following him over. For one blissful moment she freefalls. She hits the water and it stings her skin before it swallows her. It was deep, and she kicks back to the surface to spit a mouthful of water out. Seb was treading water smirking at her before he swims towards her and she jumps on him sending him under when she shoves at his shoulders.

She gasps before she’s dragged under and they wrestle, dragging the other deep as they twist and kick at the other. Her lungs start to burn, and she attempts to reach for the surface only to feel his fingers around her ankle and yanking her backwards just before she could reach air. For a moment there’s nothing but panic as she struggles, one of his arms wrapping tightly around her middle and then he throws her upwards.

She gasps loudly and breathing hard it takes her a moment to realise that he was holding her, and her back was pressed to his chest. She has barely recovered when she feels him take a deep breath and she hurriedly prepares herself before she’s yanked back down. She was expecting another fight, but he doesn’t fight her, just drags her deeper and then with her facing him, he pulls her closer and she lets him. His hand moves to the back of her head moving towards her till their heads bump gently.

He was the one that kissed her. He was the one that pushed his lips to hers. While startled she kisses him back, aware they were playing a dangerous game. What was wrong with her? There was press above them, probably waiting for them to resurface but for the next few moments they share an underwater kiss that sees them both struggle with continuing or resurfacing for air. Unable to wait any longer, her lungs bursting she kicks upwards and away from him.

He resurfaces a good few feet away from her, but she doesn’t smile at him. They both look up when they’re yelled at to get their asses out and back up there. She looks at Seb, “Quick way up?”

Seb smirks and points to the rock wall. “Bit of a hike back to the top otherwise.”

“Wonderful,” she mutters swimming to the edge. Seb climbs next to her helping her and she was irritated. She could climb a damn wall, but she holds back on her snappish response. He reaches the top before her, Heikki and Phil yanking him up the last of the way before offering her his hand when he’s safely at the top. She considers rejecting his help but relents begrudgingly. He pulls her easily up and muttering her thanks as she goes to get redressed.

Both wet, they decide to head down, their small party thrilled with the show except for Phil who thinks they were ridiculous. Seb just tells him to lighten up and that no one go hurt and it was just a little fun. Laura doesn’t comment, but just trudges with them quietly back down her mind focused on her underwater kiss with Sebastian. Maybe she had a problem.

In the car park they part ways with their media accompaniment. At least Christian would be happy. She goes to head back to the car she and Phil had arrived in when Seb grabs her. “You’re with me Aston,” he states shooting Heikki a look, Laura feels her stomach do a hot flip.

“And I’m with Phil?” Heikki doesn’t look happy. “Christian says you both have to come back in one piece.”

“Laura?” Phil asks.

She shrugs and goes to Seb. “I’m driving.” He smiles and holds out the keys to her which she takes. They split up and she goes to get in. Sebastian reaches into the backseat to grab her a jacket since she was shivering. She takes it without a thank you and puts it on before starting the car. She doesn’t get a chance to pull away before Phil and Heikki stop next to them and Sebastian puts the window down to lean out to talk to Heikki, in Finnish, and clearly about her because Heikki was staring at her with cold eyes.

“One second,” Sebastian looks at her when she revs the engine impatiently only to have Sebastian dig out a room card and lean back out to pass it to his trainer. Laura stares at the flesh she is flashed when his t-shirt slides up and her fingers move to brush it without real thought. Warm to the touch and goose bumps appearing from her likely still cold fingers Sebastian reaches around and catches her wrist and falling back into the car.

The window goes up, and with her hand still trapped in Sebastian’s she meets his piercing gaze as he states bluntly, “We need to talk.”

Phil and Heikki spin up gravel as they tear out in front of them and both stare after the other Renault vehicle as Sebastian releases her hand. Laura drives after them suddenly feeling the urge to beat them back to the paddock. There’s silence as she speeds, overtaking Phil and Heikki as she does.

“So,” she grips the wheel tightly, “What do you want to talk about?” She had no plans on making this easy, there was no easy.

“About last race weekend,” he licks his lips as refers to their undiscussed kiss.

“It was nothing,” she immediately answers stiffening.

“Sure,” Sebastian shrugs, “Let’s go with nothing, I was happy to go with nothing and not discuss this.” Laura winces in knowledge of where he was going. “We just risked a hell of a lot back there underwater.” His hand points out the window referring to their hike.

“Well if we’re going to get technical, you started that.”

“Fine but it’s not like you shove me away Aston!”

“Don’t yell at me!” she shouts back. “Like I have all the fucking answers to our fucked-up relationship. And for the record, I don’t want any relationship with you!”

“Don’t for one moment think you’re girlfriend of the year material either. How Jenson puts up with you – “

“For the millionth time I am not in a relationship with Jenson Button!” Her voice might now have moved passed yelling into scream territory. But he touched a fucking nerve. Her loss of composure gave him the audacity to smirk at her.

Leaning forward he whispers in her ear, “You’re very touchy on that subject Aston, can’t get something you want?”

She slams the brakes, pulling the car off the motorway, at least the sudden pitstop caught him by surprise. “You know I’m going to murder you right now don’t you? Dump your body in those fucking trees and let you rot?” Her voice is shaking with anger.

His face is far too close. “You and I have a problem Aston,” Sebastian’s voice is suddenly serious, “And it’s not us wanting to kill each other.”

“Stop fucking pushing my buttons,” she seethes. He does it on purpose, he enjoys working her up, she knows that.

He lets out a huff. “I do try not to. I don’t want to fight with you all the time. It’s… exhausting.”

Laura blinks, her anger ebbing away at the sad smile Sebastian gives her, the mood changing between them.

“Don’t shove me off track then,” she shrugs.

“Not everything has to be about racing,” he sighs like she missed the point. “We’re more than that.”

“No, that’s all we are,” she argues. “We’re team mates, not friends, not…” She stops about to say lovers. But that wasn’t the right word, and once didn’t count. “We’re not anything else but racing drivers to each other.”

“You don’t see other’s like that, just me,” he states. “Why am I different?”

Because you can beat me, because you get under my skin like no one else ever has, was the answer. But she can’t say that, so she opts for silence before both jump when a horn blares, Phil and Heikki fly passed them. It’s enough of a prompt to put them back on the road.

Sebastian once more prods at them. “What if we weren’t team mates? Would things be different?”

“You are my team mate,” she reminds him.

He looks at her hard before telling her something he knew he shouldn’t. “I’m not renewing for Red Bull next year.”

She looks at him surprised and nearly runs into the back of a slower car in front. She brakes hard. “Why?”

He shrugs. “Time for a change.”

“Because of me?” The words spill out before she can catch them.

He looks surprised. “No,” he answers quickly. “I’d made my decision quite some time ago.” She falls silent feeling surprisingly upset at the news. “Want me to stay?”

“No.” Sebastian had provided her something that no one ever had in her racing career to date, a fire so deep it pushed her further than anything else previously.

“You’re going to miss me,” he teases her, and she glare at him. “Dan won’t fuck you if you take him out of a race.”

She stares at him furiously. “Do you have to mention that?” It’s the first time either of them had _ever_ addressed their post Barcelona hook-up.

“Sorry.” He makes a motion as if he he’s pushing a button, “I can’t help it sometimes.” Another stretch of silence. “So? Will things change next year if we’re not teammates?”

Laura shrugs. “Yes. We can go back to indifference.”

“All our problems are just fixed?”

“Yep.” It was going to be that simple.

“But… we still have half a season left.” His hand fall to her thigh and Laura swallows at the immediate effect it has on her. If that was a suggestion that they should consider continue last week’s activities…

“Sebastian,” she warns casting him a glance and his thumb flicks across her skin before he pulls his hand back.

“We’ll avoid the touching then.”

“I think we’ll just avoid each other,” she adds as the circuit appears in front of them.

 

*         *        *

 

“Hi.” Laura gives a small smile at Jenson when he opens his suite door. He looked flushed, eyes bright and shining with a joy only a race wins provide.

“Laura,” he beams at her.

“I assume there’s a party to celebrate your victory.”

“And you’re looking for a reason to go and get drunk and drown your sorrows,” he says knowingly.

Yes, she was. Reliability issues on her debut not only was disappointing in regard to her return, but any slim chance she had of staying in any title fight was now well passed laughable. So, yes, she was going to piggyback on McLaren’s celebrations even if it meant…

“Laura, this is Jennifer.” Jenson shoves his girlfriend in her face and breathing in was like dragging knives into her lungs. But she puts on the nice smile, does the polite introductions because once this was over she was going to get trashed before she flew home and disappeared into the oblivion of summer break.

 

There’s a lot of people. There’s a lot of noise that is meant to be music. There is so much commotion Laura is wishing she was somewhere else and alcohol was not helping her pep her spirits. Or maybe she wasn’t getting to the drunk part fast enough. It also didn’t help that Jenson’s girlfriend appeared to be lovely as fuck – how was she meant to hate her if she wasn’t a cow? But despite her feelings, she ensures she is the person she is expected to be, the best friend, team player, all those things she didn’t want to be. Maybe she could find a dark corner and sit there and give life the finger…

She was only halfway to her corner, eyes watching Jenson dance with his perfect girlfriend, when an arm slides around her waist and a body presses into her from behind, and she freezes. “You’re not meant to be here.”

“We wear the same shirts, neither of us are badged Mclaren,” Sebastian smiles into her ear. “But then again, we both have friends in rival teams.”

“And we’re meant to be avoiding each other,” Laura reminds him but she’s not shoving him away, eyes still watching Jenson, willing him to dare look at her now as Sebastian tightens his grip on her.

“Yes, and I wanted to thank you for doing that so thoroughly by exiting the race. All this space you’re putting between us is working out wonderfully for me.”

She twists her head to glare at him over her shoulder. “One day, I’m going to hurt you so bad…”

“Who said I wouldn’t enjoy that?” His eyes sparkle at her, lips tugging into a dirty smile and it does things to her insides.

“I hate you.”

“And Jenson’s girlfriend is prettier than you,” Sebastian bites back and Laura sucks in her breath sharply, eyes back on Jenson. She grabs Sebastian’s hand and digs her nails in. “You’re in love with him Aston. Has anyone ever rejected you before?”

“Who said he rejected me?” she snaps before she lets out a breathy sigh when Sebastian rubs his cheek against her throat. It does things to her knees. Goddamn it. She shoves at his hands, pushing him away. “And what about you Sebastian?” she turns on him. “Chasing something, someone who despises you?”

“That’s easy,” he smiles at her completely unphased. “Hearing no won’t fucking hurt. I did the girlfriend thing Aston, I had the nice girl, I was the nice guy and let me tell you… that road isn’t guaranteed anymore of a happy ending.”

That tiny glimpse into Sebastian’s personal life feels far deeper than she wanted to go. “Am I meant to care?” she asks coldly. She sees it, the tiniest flash of hurt at her utter brush off. It feels good.

“With your heart of stone?” Sebastian snorts, “No.”

She’d shifted away from the group, to that tiny corner that she’d been searching for, except she’s not alone. Sebastian joining her, sinking into the shadows with her, kissing her and anyone would think she liked this as she pulls him closer, deepens the kiss. She’s failing at her indifference as she allows herself to slip into another moment of insanity with him. At least she’s not thinking of Jenson and her DNF.

 

*         *        *

 

The break is nice. Three weeks of no F1 and no F1 related thoughts. She takes a week-long holiday to a beach where she burns more than tans. Then spends the next week being the supportive sister to Lillian who rages about her latest beau that has ended as messily as all the previous ones. And then she prepares hard to return racing, throwing herself into training with Phil more than ever because she wants to finish the season off strong because at this point she was only limping along.

There were eight races left and she wanted them all to herself.

 

She’s barely in the paddock at the first race back, scoffing down breakfast she missed when her ever so charming teammate joins her. His bowl of muesli drops in front of her inviting himself along to her breakfast for one. She blinks at him as he talks to her with her mouthful. “Excited to be back in the car?”

“Of course,” she answers wondering if after everything to date they were now simply going to be polite to each other. They fall into silence as they eat and when she gets ready to stand up Seb speaks again.

“Can I ask you a favour?”

She stops and stares at him. “You can ask, sure.”

“I’m sorry you didn’t race, and you missed a lot but…” He leans forward, and she immediately shrinks back not liking the close distance between them. “I want to win the championship,” he finishes quietly. She blinks at him surprised. He was asking her to back him up. “I don’t want you to be ordered to do it; I know you’d just ignore anything you didn’t want to do. You didn’t pit when you were told once just because you didn’t agree with the strategy.”

“You want me to want to let you win?”

“I want you to be my teammate and not my competition,” he clarifies. “You can’t win it this year and I’m sorry for that, but I can.”

She knew her championship was pretty well over but to be number 2. She wasn’t sure if she could actually willingly let him past. This year she’d driven to beat him, it had been the aim of every race and it had bettered her driving tenfold. She shakes her head. “I won’t move over for you,” she finally speaks.

“Why? Because it’s me?” he looks at her frustrated. “If I was Hulkenberg or Kobi you would.”

“Yes, and I would,” she answers simply. “With you though, I can’t move over and I won’t let you win if I can win.” And she wasn’t sorry for that fact even if he did look hurt.

“If the roles were reversed I would do that for you,” he argues frustrated.

“I don’t believe you would,” she defends calmly. “You want to beat me, you beat me.”

Sebastian now angry pushes his chair back sharply and grabs the remainder of his breakfast and stalks off. She stares after him not knowing how he could ask that. Never would she concede a position willingly to Sebastian Vettel.

Mind you, she wouldn't give him anything for any reason.

 

*         *        *


	8. Second Best

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta-ed by the wonderful @formula1isfast

“Fuck Miles.” Lillian stares from near the paddock gates next to her brother as she watches Laura and Sebastian. “Make them stop.”

Miles looks up from his phone and he simply shrugs, and Lillian goes back to staring at her sister and Sebastian signing autographs. Well if you can call it that, it stopped being autograph signing after about thirty seconds. Instead it became some weird competition to sign the most, and then convince anyone supporting the other to pass their merchandise over, both signing and defacing the other’s merch, all the while practically pressed together like they were trying to topple the other over.

So, the fans were enjoying it, and the cameras, but what the hell had happened since Monaco to have them act like they were twelve? “Are they always like this?” she demands.

“They’ve never been friendly, I didn’t realise I was meant to provide a relationship status update report to you,” Miles answers. “They’re fine. Let them squabble now so they’re not swapping carbon fibre on Sunday.”

Lillian stares at her brother, their sister didn’t act like a goddamn twelve-year-old and pick fights. But hey, let’s ignore that fact. “I need my damn job back,” Lillian mutters to herself as finally Laura and Sebastian finish up signing. She’s surprised it hasn’t ended up in a wave of slaps and hair pulling.

Laura immediately points a finger at her and her unamused glare. “Don’t fucking start.”

“We’ll start it later,” Lillian promises as she grabs her pass to follow her and Miles in.

 

Laura does a pretty good job of avoiding her, and despite the fact that she stays after practice late at the track, Lillian lets herself into Laura’s suite and throws herself on the bed prepared to wait. When Laura does arrive she looks tired, but it wasn’t going to shake her resolve to have a conversation.

“Worked out why Sebastian was faster in both practice sessions?” she asks.

Laura only shakes her head. “Lillian I am tired.”

“I worked it out you know,” Lillian says sitting up from her fort of pillows she’d built in her boredom. She watches as Laura stiffens but says nothing as she begins getting undressed. “You and Sebastian.”

“There’s nothing to work out,” Laura tells her throwing her shoes to the floor a little too viciously.

“You’re in love.”

“Excuse me?” Laura’s head snapped up, eyes wide.

“This isn’t about Sebastian. It’s about Jenson and his new girlfriend. You’re in love with him and you’ve effectively made Sebastian you’re rebound guy. But without all the sex, which is a boring way to go about it.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Laura mutters and Lillian jumps when the bathroom door slams loudly.

Lillian looks up when moments the door reopens, and Laura is back looking pissed off.

“Actually, no. Jenson is being ridiculous! He can’t wait to be with me one minute and then be with _Jennifer_ two seconds later. Like I meant nothing. Like there wasn’t something between us!”

Lillian gets off the bed reaching for her. “Hey – “

“Don’t touch me!” Laura bats at her hands. “Yes, I love him. And yes, I said no. And yes, that makes it my fault. But I don’t care!”

“Okay…” Lillian says slowly. “I think you should talk to Jenson.”

“And what?” Laura glares at her. “Tell him I made a mistake, and could you dump you’re very nice girlfriend because I fucked up?”

“Uh… yeah. Pretty much,” Lillian says. “Don’t be miserable Lau.”

She watches as Laura’s anger fades away, and that exhaustion is back, along with a tight smile that wobbles and eyes that grow wet. “You don’t approve of dating drivers.”

Lillian cocks her head. “I approve of you being happy,” she gives her sister a smile.

“Are you lifting your ban?”

“Just on Jenson,” Lillian clarifies. “Promise you’ll talk to him?”

“Race first,” Laura says wrapping her arms around herself. “Got to beat fucking Vettel.”

Lillian rolls her eyes and moves to hug her tightly. She kisses her cheek. “Don’t fall in love with rebound guy Lau.”

  Laura snorts at her sarcasm. “Just what I need, my life more complicated.”

  “You were never one for boring, look what you do for a living,” Lillian reminds her. “Go shower.” She smacks her ass lightly to get her moving. “Then I’ll order us dinner.”

 

*        *        *

 

“That’s pole Laura!”

It wasn’t just pole though, it was a lap record. She could have floated from the car. Her shitty Friday was in the past, and now as opposed to tailing her teammate in the times, he was the one giving her a tight smile and a congratulatory handshake. He wasn’t even second, he was third.

“What the hell was that?” Jenson grabs her, swinging her around, despite that he was in second, as Sebastian promptly walks off. “How did you get four tenths?” Her feet are back on the ground and his smile was almost as large as hers. She knew her lap was fucking incredible, she could feel it, she had nothing else left. “Amazing,” he tells her knocking their helmets together, “Fucking amazing you are.”

Laura’s smile only widens, if that was at all possible. She hugs Jenson again, because she can’t contain her joy and because it’s Jenson. When Phil appears, he’s also showered in hugs. She’s not sure anything can dampen her mood in this moment. Sebastian’s pout and sullen mood only boosted hers – yeah, she was not handing him a fucking championship on a plate.

 

 

Sebastian stands in the drivers’ room after the race, eyes dark, angry as he stares at Aston and Jenson. He sucks furiously on his drinks bottle. He’s delighted to hear that Laura didn’t get a win, fuck the team. Her and Jenson had fought most of the race, despite her leading for nearly all of it, but Jenson had done some ballsy move with five laps to go to take the win. It seemed to be replaying on the screens constantly.

He had barely held his third from Lewis. He was pissed he fucked up qualifying. He was pissed Aston outqualified him. He was pissed Aston finished ahead. He was pissed he was told it was too close between first and second to swap positions for the championship due to the gap between them. But mostly he was pissed watching Jenson and Aston.

If he had been Jenson, if he had taken the win from her he’s pretty sure Aston wouldn’t have hugged him, congratulated him, talked excitedly to him about the late race overtake. Nope, he’d be given the cold shoulder, they’d argue post-race furiously. He says nothing to either of them after his mandatory congratulations to Jenson.

When they move to the podium, he slams his drink bottle on the table when the two of them practically walk out together holding hands. It’s loud enough to have Laura turn back to him. She smirks at him and holds up eight fingers before dropping one.

“Seven to go Seb. And I beat your ass.”

He gives her the finger. Fuck the cameras.

 

*        *        *

 

“What are you doing?”

Laura looks up from her phone at her sister who was patiently waiting for her to get ready, so they could join Jenson and Lewis. She was being delayed by Sebastian. “Text warring with Sebastian. I am winning.”

“You should be focusing on Jenson. And how do you win a text war?”

She grins at Lillian. “He’s only texting in capitals now.” She does leave her phone then, getting ready to join her sister and brother so they could meet up with the McLaren party. And it’s only when they’re walking out does she check her phone again. She freezes when she sees the last text from Sebastian. Her entire body floods with heat and her breath catches in her throat.

_Lets sort this in person. Come here. 552_

There’s no way going to Sebastian’s room won’t end up like Barcelona. She follows Lillian, ignoring the text and trying desperately hard to ignore the desire to turn around and go find room 552.

She’s so distracted for the rest of the evening, Jenson and _Jennifer_ don’t even bother her. In the end, she’s just proud of herself that she made it back to her own room without any pitstops. It felt like her biggest achievement this weekend.

 

*        *        *

 

Lillian was pressing her on the Jenson point, but Laura had her mind on racing. On beating Sebastian. On chasing her win. The season seems to be speeding up and she seems to have fallen into a permanent podium holder. Of second fucking place.

 

**_Singapore. Second._ **

It’s also the race where Jenson decided he was going to throw his car into the barrier. Hard. Laura catches a glimpse of the accident on replays on the screens behind the safety car. Even when told he was okay, it doesn’t shake the cold feeling from her stomach. And when the race is all done and dusted, Jenson had already left the track.

She finds him in his hotel room and she’s given a tight smile before he lets her in. After checking he wasn’t too bruised, she hugs him tightly. “Don’t die on me Jenson.”

He kisses the side of her head. “Okay Laura.” His hand buries in her hair holding her to him and she doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want to leave him. She wants to stay and when she pulls back to look at him he carefully tucks her loose hair behind her ears as he murmurs, “I promise I’m okay.”

She opens her mouth to tell him how she feels. Now would be the right time, tell him she loves him, she can’t live without him, but instead she asks, “Are you happy Jense?”

His eyes search hers, like he was trying to work out the meaning behind her question. He drops his head to hers and closes his eyes. “I’m sore.” Not an answer, or maybe it was.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him quietly, for hurting him, for not taking what she should have at the beginning of the year. He gives her a tight smile looking away when his phone rings.

“That will be Jennifer.”

He goes to move away. “Leave it.” Leave her.

He turns back to stare at her, the phone ringing loudly in the background. It sounds shrill and he looks like he’s waiting for her to say something, add something to her request. And when she fails he lets her go and grabs the phone, “Hey!” He greets his girlfriend with an over the top chirpiness in his tone.

Biting her lip, Laura lets herself out. If Lillian was here, she’d smack her in the face.

 

**_Korea. Second._ **

It’s the race where Sebastian gets a DNF, losing his engine mid-race, tightening the championship up between him and Lewis immensely. The weekend results and the championship table end up in a conversation post-race conversation with Christian in his office. And Laura knew what it was before he even opened his mouth. Her stomach feels like it’s full of rocks.

“Laura,” he starts giving her a smile that looked apologetic. “I hope things don’t come to this – “

She can only shake her head as she drags her fingers through her hair before they lock behind her head.

“- but we’re at a point in the championship that if required, Sebastian will need your assistance.”

“You want me to move over for him if I’m in front.” She puts it bluntly because they weren’t going to dance around this. He was implementing team orders.

“Well, if the situation is right, if the circumstances are in that favour,” Christian agrees, sticking with his more delicate terms.

“I plan to keep everyone behind, and I won’t move over. We’re meant to be equals.”

“Laura,” Christian sighs. “Please don’t make this hard.”

“Please don’t make me be someone I’m not,” she responds. “Seb wants to beat me, he beats me. I told him that. I’m not going to be a number 2 for any reasons. Maybe you should have kept me out of the car for the rest of the season if that was what you wanted.”

He grabs her before she can walk off. “I won’t give you any explicit orders over the radio. This will be your decision,” he promises. “You make it as you see fit.”

“I want my win Christian. And I won’t give it up, not for Sebastian, not for anyone. Don’t ask me to do that.” She pleads with him silently and he sighs.

“Team always comes first Laura. Never forget that,” Christian warns her, smiles gone, and she purses her lips before letting herself out.

She makes a path directly for Sebastian, finding him packing up his gear to leave the track. “You had to go run and tattle to daddy?”

He looks up surprised to see her. “Sorry?”

“Never happening Vettel. In fact, I’m officially cheering for Lewis.” She slams the door closed behind her not even wanting to hear his response.

That night as she has dinner with Miles, they discuss team orders. She’s aware if she plays things wrong she was jeopardising her future with the team. “Tell me what to do.”

“I can’t,” he shakes his head because she would only be pissed at his answer. “Come on Laura, you’d do this for anyone else. What makes Seb different?”

“There are still five races to go,” she tells him. “I start now; I’ll have to do it again and again. If I move over everyone will see it for what it is.”

“Make it look real,” Miles shrugs. “If you want to help him, you’ll do it properly and not do a Massa of 2010.”

She covers her face. “Why can’t I still be racing against Kobi or Nico?”

“This year has been good for you having someone you don’t get along with,” Miles tells her. “Do what you want for now. There are five races and the situation has to be right, Seb doesn’t _need_ you yet.”

She looks up and nods. “I want my win.”

“Most people see you having had achieved that Laura, but you will get a proper win.”

“I want my win more than I want Seb to have his championship,” she continues.

“Then take it,” Miles smiles.                                                                    

She nods, “I will.”

 

**_Japan. Second._ **

It’s the race where Sebastian announces his departure from Red Bull. And she’s hit with so many questions from the media she gets tired of diplomatic and team responses, but it’s all anyone wanted to talk about – Sebastian’s move to Ferrari.

“Laura, you must be delighted to hear you won’t partner Sebastian next year?”

Fuck it. “Yes, I am. Sebastian will be someone else’s problem.”

“Laura comments on Sebastian’s departure?”

“Good luck and good riddance.”

“Laura will miss you Sebastian next year?”

She snorts. “Nope.”

It goes on till the point she’s dragged from the press pen and hurled in front of Christian, where’s she’s given a right dressing down. If he could, she’d probably be grounded. She won’t apologise, especially not to her teammate who didn’t seem upset but more amused when she passes him after escaping Christian. He was probably happy to see her in hot water.

 

**_India. Second._ **

It’s the race where she wants to scream, having had enough of her second places. Especially the weekends where Sebastian finishes in front. What was wrong with her? What more did she have to do? With media done she walks back to the team, Miles gives her a one-armed hug as they walk telling her to stop pouting, consistency was great. She just wants to punch him in the face.

In the post-race debrief she sits there shooting daggers at Sebastian, he’d won this weekend, so he was wearing his usual smug expression. It was lucky that Sebastian was opposite and out of her reach, because she was itching to stab him with her pen. She can only grip it tightly, delighting in the images she can conjure up. She hopes no one asks her anything because she had no idea what Adrian was blabbering on about currently.

She watches as Rocky leans over to Sebastian and whisper in his ear. The way Sebastian freezes, looks at her with a pink stain now on his cheeks she has a good idea that whatever his comment was, it had nothing to do with the race. She drops her pen and hurriedly looks at the lap chart in front of her. Her mind switching her violent images to Rocky.

“Before we all go, here’s to next race and hopefully securing the constructors championship.”

Laura looks up at Christian. Right, there was a team championship too.

“With podium finishes and consistency we only need the equivalent of a second place.”

“Aston has that covered for us,” Sebastian comments lightly. She hurls her pen at his head. It misses.

“And before I only have one driver for next race, safe travels home.”

She flinches when Christian rests a hand on her shoulder while she’s still seated. “Don’t enflame things Laura. Congratulations on delivering a one two for the team.”

Enflame things? Enflame things! Like it was her fault? Where the hell was her pen. But Christian was gone, the room emptying out, except for Sebastian who was still sitting opposite her. He leans over then and picks up her pen and offers it to her. She snatches it back.

“You want to get a drink together?” There’s no smugness with the offer only what appeared a genuine flicker of a smile.

“A drink?” she raises an eyebrow. They both knew it wouldn’t just be a drink, but it was the first time since Italy when he asked her to his room that he had asked to spend time away from the track.

“Just a drink,” he promises crossing his heart.

Her anger and frustration seem to be calming down. “Is that what Rocky suggested?”

Sebastian snorts and leans back in his chair. “No.”

When he makes no offer to continue she presses, “I don’t get to know?”

“Rocky only has _very_ inappropriate comments about us. All the fucking time.” And this was where she was pleased that Rocky wasn’t her engineer. “He thinks we’re fucking,” Sebastian adds shifting to lean on his arms and towards her across the table.

Laura’s mouth twitches up into an almost smile. “Never. Spain doesn’t count.”

Sebastian grins at that. “Of course, it doesn’t count.” Laura goes to stand up. “Wait ten minutes.” She looks at him surprised but he jumps to his feet and goes to lock the door. “Rocky thinks we’re sleeping together, he can think that.”

“You think he’ll be back?”

“He told me to _sort out_ your anger problems when the briefing was done.” He air quotes ‘sort out’.

“I don’t fucking have anger problems!”

“Of course not Aston,” Sebastian couldn’t be more sarcastic if he tried as he folds his arm leaning on the door. “The pen _flew_ from your fingers.”

“It flew to the nearest idiot.”

There’s a pause before Sebastian asks, “Don’t fight me next race?”

She stops spinning the pen between her fingers. Sebastian hadn’t asked that to her directly since they returned from break. And despite race demands on his end, she had yet been made to give him a place, but then again, he won the last two races.

“Don’t ask me that.”

“We’re teammates Aston. Just for once can you be my teammate. Please?”

“No Sebastian. No.” She wasn’t going to give him anything.

“Fine,” he sighs. “We’ll do it the hard way then,” his mouth sets in a firm line.

She jumps to her feet. “Now that you asked we don’t need to get drinks.” She goes to the door, but he doesn’t move.

“I asked nicely. Used my manners…”

She looks up at him, surprised at how close they were suddenly. “And you’re such a good boy?”

“Very,” he answers, hand dropping to her hip and then sliding around to her lower back.

There’d been no touching in so long, she’d avoided this, she’d been _good_. His hand was warm, pushing her closer and she steps forward till she’s pressed against him. Her breathing quickens.

“You should be congratulating me on my win,” he tells her, both arms around her now, pulling her firmly against him because she didn’t push him away.

“You’d love that wouldn’t you?” Her skin burns as his hands slide under the back of her loose-fitting team shirt, finding the skin on her back and sides.

“You don’t have to say the words…” His smile was wicked.

“You want me to get on my knees for you?” She shakes her head, “Never.”

His face pushes into her neck and her head falls to give him more room. She lets out a small gasp when he very lightly pushes his lips to her pulse. “New idea,” he says straightening back up, eyes bright. “You let me pass if required and I’ll get on _my_ knees for _you_.”

She definitely shuddered with arousal at the thought, and heat was pooling between her legs when Sebastian wets his lip, giving her a peak of his tongue.

His lips press to my ear. “And just so you know it’s worth it, I’ll give you a preview tonight…”

Her eyes widen, fingers tightening on his shirt. “Preview with no obligations attached?”

Sebastian laughs softly. “No. That doesn’t sound fair. If you _enjoy yourself_ that’s you agreeing.” She’d slipped on a skirt after she’d showered post-race and Sebastian was using that as an opportunity to run his fingers up the back of her thighs. “Do we have a deal?”

It would be so easy to say yes, and just break the deal. Maybe he expects that, he should expect that right? Her head was whirling, unable to properly focus because his fingers were following the line of her underwear, making everything throb in anticipation.

They’re interrupted when the door handle turns, the lock stopping it from opening. They both stare at it. “Rocky,” Sebastian smirks and his hands slip away from her. “Come see me Aston if you make up your mind.” He licks his lips once more, a deliberate gesture and then slips out.

Fuck. Damn Sebastian straight to hell. She smooths her skirt back down and follows him out. Rocky is leaning on the wall opposite. “You and I are going to have some serious issues,” she snaps at him. He only grins at her before he practically skips away. “Shit.”

She goes to find her brother. If she stayed with him all evening she wouldn’t go, make deals with the devil.

*        *        *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all the comments. They mean a lot and have definitely gotten me back into writing this!


	9. Celebrations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta-ed by the wonderful @formula1isfast

 

Laura stands next to Lewis’s Mercedes sports car and she immediately itches to drive it, her body tingling at the thought. “It’s…awesome.” Lewis was standing there rattling off the car’s specs as her fingers ghosted over the side of the bonnet.

“I think Aston might orgasm just looking at it.”

Laura’s head immediately snaps up and she glares at Jenson as Lewis laughs. The three of them had hooked up after a charity event and were now at Lewis’s where they were checking out Lewis’s new car – one that Jenson also possessed but she hadn’t had the chance to view in person.

She looks at Lewis who seemed pleased with her reaction. “I want to take it for a spin.”

The smile is gone from Lewis as face. “No. Absolutely not.”

Like a child she jumps on him, yanking his arm as she bounces next to him. “Please? Pretty please. I promise I won’t hit a single thing! It will be scratch free at the end.”

Lewis shaking his head. “No way man! You are as crazy as shit behind the wheel.”

“Hey!” She looks offended, “Near grand prix winner here!”

“Come on,” Jenson says to Lewis jumping to her aide, “Vettel isn’t around, she won’t hit anything.”

“Hey!” She barks at Jenson who easily dodges the punch she threw at his chest.

“Give her the keys,” Jenson orders Lewis who was looking between both of them, feeling certain that he was going to lose this argument as he looked back at Laura’s pleading face and his precious new toy. Lewis was also certain this wasn’t going to end well.

“Would you loan her the keys to your car?” As he asks Jenson, he was already digging out the keys from his pocket.

“Hell no!” Jenson laughs once the keys were in Laura’s hand, clenched firmly in her grip as she skips to the driver’s door.

“Oh my god,” Lewis breathes as he slowly makes his way to the front passenger seat as he covers his face, silently praying this wouldn’t end as badly as he envisioned.

Laura has the engine on before she’s even fully in the car and she revs it violently as Jenson slides in behind her. Jenson leans forward whispering in her ear “Don’t stain the seat.”

“I will hurt you,” she warns as she eases out of the drive carefully trying not to notice that Lewis was nervously fidgeting next to her. At least Jenson didn’t seem to have an issue; he hadn’t even bothered with a belt as he leans between the front seats to tell her which way to go.

The moment they’re on the freeway she floors it, the car purring underneath her perfectly. “I’m in love,” she sighs as she pushes the car well above the speed limit to hear the engine and feel the handling.

“You driving a Renault?” Lewis asks trying to distract himself from _exactly_ how fast Aston was currently going. It didn’t help that Jenson had sat back to put on a belt.

“Yeah,” Laura wrinkles her nose. “You don’t think about that when you sign a contract. It’s okay I guess, I’m not home much.”

“So, does that mean your next contract is with Ferrari?” Jenson grabs the seat to hold on as Laura wildly overtakes someone. He grins noting that Lewis looked he might shit his pants.

“Or a team with a Merc engine,” she grins at him in the rear-view mirror which causes Lewis to go off, practically screaming at her to look at the road when she nearly runs into the back of a car in front of her. “If I hit something,” Laura snaps at Lewis, “It will be because of the girl sitting next to me.”

Jenson is laughing, and she leans forward to turn on the radio filling the car with Lewis’s choice of R&B starting an argument between the three of them and a fight to pick a song.

It’s about ten minutes into their trip that there is an almost immediate silence as blue flashing lights appear in the car. And then if Lewis was bad before, now he’s ten times worse.

“Holy shit Aston!” Lewis screeches, “How fucking fast are you going? Slow the fuck down!”

Laura though, while appearing calm, her heart was pounding wildly, makes a split decision, and floors it taking the car to top speed.

“Pull over!” Lewis orders clutching the dash. “Are you fucking insane.”

“Which exit goes back to suburbia?” Laura shouts over the top of him.

“Stop the car Aston,” Jenson orders loudly.

“Are you two insane? Three f1 drivers in one car, going more than two times the limit, do you know what that will do?” She reasons with them loudly deciding the next exit will do.

“No!” Jenson says leaning forward hurriedly. “Next one. Next exit!”

They hit built up areas nearly immediately and with the police car still on their tail but in the distance,  she turns wildly through the streets, left, left, right and left. Lewis was now silent, eyes closed his mouth moving in silent prayer she was sure, while Jenson kept checking behind them nervously, getting caught out when she brakes suddenly and puts the car in reverse.

“What are you doing?” Jenson asks as the car comes to a stop and Laura shuts off the engine and kills the lights.

“Shut up,” she hisses at them and then the three of them duck as the police go screaming past them. The three of them don’t dare to breathe or move even long after the sirens have faded. And then shakier than she cared to admit she pulled out the keys and stumbled out of the car.

Lewis is out of the car, look slightly nauseous as he walks around to her. And Laura waited to be yelled at and she was pretty sure that if Lewis started she might cry, she wasn’t completely oblivious about what she’d just risked. But Jenson is behind her, hugging her hard against him as he kissed the side of her head.

“You okay?” he murmurs. She nods as she sags against him.

“Oh my god,” Lewis breathes out his anger only kept at bay because he was stunned. “She fucks up and then gets a hug?”

“Don’t,” Jenson orders him sharply his tone a strong warning. “Give the keys to Lewis,” he tells Laura and she doesn’t hesitate to obey. She didn’t feel like driving anymore.

Jenson releases her and goes to Lewis talking to him quietly as Lewis argues with him in a hushed voice. Raking her fingers through her hair Laura looks around not exactly sure where they were. But as skittish as she felt right now there were two things to take from this, one they hadn’t been caught and secondly, she was 90% sure that the police car never got close enough to get a license plate number which would turn out to be a big problem if they had.

The house they were currently borrowing the driveway of, suddenly lights up and all three of them dive for the car. Laura slides into the back as Lewis pulls back onto the road immediately. The ride is silent till Jenson breaks it and Laura who was sulking in her guilt raises her head.

“Since you risked our lives…”

“Your life was perfectly safe,” Laura mutters.

“… and our super licenses. I think you owe us,” Jenson finishes.

“Oh, Aston owes us _big_ time,” Lewis agrees.

Laura wasn’t sure sue liked where this conversation was going.

“We want know what you really did to your knee?” He smirks at her waiting, because it was the one thing that no one was sure and there seemed to be many theories that littered the paddock this season. Most concerning Vettel.

“It’s not a mystery,” she shrugs when Lewis snorts as he programs his GPS in with an alternate route home, clearly wanting to avoid the path they’d just taken.

“No one Aston, believes you hurt it in your shunt with Vettel,” Jenson states.

“And considering you nearly killed us and then had us all arrested, agree with Jenson, I think we’re owed the truth,” Lewis jumps in.

Laura makes a motion to zip her lips and throw away the key.

“Well just admit that it wasn’t because of your accident,” Lewis tries to bargain.

“It wasn’t caused in the shunt,” she relents that piece of information after a moment of silence. And as she remembers her run in with Sebastian her cheeks heat up as Lewis speaks again.

“I’m telling you Jenson, her and Vettel were in a fight.”

“Bullshit,” Jenson says looking at Aston hard and noting the flushed face of embarrassment. Undoing his seatbelt, he climbs into the back with her as Laura’s eyes widen setting Lewis off about there being rules in _his_ car about not changing seats. Now sitting opposite her, Jenson stares at her hard. “Tell me.”

Laura’s eyes flick to Lewis who was watching them as he drove and at Jenson who was demanding an answer. She shakes her head and then gasps when Jenson grabs her and pulls her against him.

“Tell me,” he says softer.

Licking her lips Laura leans forward unable to deny his request and because she decides he can know a little more and because she hopes it pushes his buttons. Her lips brush his ear as she whispers, “Sex injury.”

“What?” Lewis demands as Jenson snaps backwards his eyes wide as he looks at her disbelief.

“You hurt your knee having sex?” Laura immediately rolls her eyes as he just about shouts it out as he repeats it. “With who?”

“How?” Lewis asks at the same time.

 “Who are you sleeping with?” Jenson demands, and Laura notes the anger in his eyes as his nostrils flare and she leans back to her side of the car and shrugs.

Lewis’s stomach sinks knowing that this wasn’t going to end well, Jenson looked furious. And this was what happened when you put off telling someone you were in love with them. He’d have commented with an ‘I told you so’, but now probably wasn’t the time.

“Who did you sleep with?” Jenson repeats his anger just increasing with her silence and steely expression.

“It’s none of your business,” she finally snaps. Jenson lashes out and grabs her arm. “Drop the jealousy act, you have _Jennifer_.”

“Who did you sleep with?” He’d keep asking till he knew, and he didn’t care if he was now shouting and if he was being irrational. Not knowing would drive him insane.

“Guys?” Lewis interrupts them as they glared at each other looking like they may murder each other. “Blood is hard to get out, so can this wait till we’re not in the car?”

“Shut up!” Both of them shout at Lewis.

“I’ll tell you when you dump what’s-her-name.” Yes, she hated Jenson’s girlfriend and yes if he could be jealous she was sleeping with someone else, well so could she.

“Tell me and consider it done.”

Laura blinks not expecting that response and the tension in the car mounts and ignoring whatever Lewis was barking at them as she moves to whisper it in his ear. He wanted to know, he could deal with the consequences, and she just hoped he didn’t shout this one aloud. “Vettel.”

She sits back, and she watches Jenson’s face change through a range of emotions before turning to look at her with his face full of rage and disgust. He’d have asked if she was serious, but he could tell she was. “What were you thinking?” His voice is shaking as she studies him. “You chose him over me?”

“It wasn’t like that,” she argues furiously “It was once, and it _doesn’t_ count!” It would never count as far as Laura was concerned.

“You knee thinks it does!”

She kicks his leg hard, using her left leg. “The knee is fucking fine,” she snaps.

“Good,” Jenson snaps and then grabs her hard yanking her roughly towards him and she doesn’t fight, just lets him position her so she was straddling his lap and the he pulls head down towards his roughly. They were glaring at the other, rage and excitement and adrenaline spurring them on. “Want me to make my feelings perfectly clear?”

“Yes,” she breathes out and then they were kissing. Just like she’d thought about for so long. Her arms curl around his neck as his circle her possessively as they kiss furiously.

Lewis wishes he didn’t have to witness this, that he didn’t have to hear them make out and the heavy breathing and moans and gasps. He starts fumbling with the radio dials drowning them out as the back of his seat is kicked by one of them. One glance up sees him see Laura and Jenson struggling to remove Laura’s jumper. “Hey!” He turns around and shouts panicked, “No fucking!”

Laura’s elbow connects hard with the window as she hurls her sweater across the seat and she moves to kiss Jenson again as his hand rubs her elbow the other under her singlet top. Her fingers move to the buttons on his button-down shirt, but Jenson catches her hands.

“Wait,” he orders breathlessly, and she’s grabbed as Jenson leans forward suddenly, “Stop the car.”

“What?” Lewis asks shocked but brakes hard and pulls over and Laura grins when she realises what Jenson had seen.

“Do you have cash?”

“Just card,” she answers as she scrambles to open the door and off his lap.

“Need a loan,” Jenson says clicking his fingers over Lewis’s shoulder.

“Why?” Lewis asks but doesn’t care why as he pulls his wallet and handing his teammate whatever was in there. “You’re both insane,” he tells them as Jenson grabs Laura’s sweater before grinning and getting out of the car. “Enjoy your night.”

It was drizzling, and Laura pulls on her sweater as Jenson shoves the cash in his pocket before grabbing her hand. The two of them walk along the foot path quickly; back to the motel Lewis had passed. Outside reception they get caught up in a heated kiss.

He pulls back to dig out the cash, they both couldn’t go in together and Laura offers, assuring him she’ll be faster. Jenson didn’t want to argue, so he lets her go keeping out of sight. Laura bounces on her feet as she’s checked in.

“You look familiar,” the female receptionist comments, squinting at her.

“Really?” Laura just wanted the key, but the woman was swinging it around on her finger as she looked at her thoughtfully.

“Yeah, like that driver girl…”

“I get that a lot,” she shrugs it off casually and the woman just shakes her head and hands the key over wishing her a goodnight.

Jenson grabs her the moment she’s out and they kiss messily for a moment before she giggles, and they head to the room. The place was cheap, but the room looked clean and she guess that was enough, the rest wasn’t important.

The two of them fall onto the bed immediately, mouth fused as Jenson rolls on top of her. He pulls back and laughs softly, “I can’t believe this is happening…”

She grins and pushes him back, so she can get at his shirt as she answers breathlessly, “Better late than never, isn’t that what they say?” Scrambling to her knees as well she strips off, removing her sweater shirt so she was just in her bra before Jenson kisses her again and they fall back onto the bed.

Jenson’s mouth moves down her throat and to her chest as his hands cup and massage her breasts, squeezing the peaks still she gasps. This had started from a fight just like with Vettel, but it was so different. With Sebastian it had been all out of anger and it had been filled with nothing but hate, with Jenson there was none of that, her anger from earlier had dissipated. 

His tongue circled her belly button before dipping in as his fingers tackled her jeans, ripping them down her legs smoothly as he kneels between her legs looking down at her. “God, I’ve wanted you for years.”

Her legs attempt to lock around him, so she can draw him back down as she murmurs, “You can have me now.”

He smiles as he lowers himself back down and settling over her as he pushes her hair from her face. “Aston,” he whispers between dragging kisses along her jaw, “I’m crazy in love with you.” He lifts his head to look her in the eyes and she touches his cheek.

“I’ve always loved you Jense,” she whispers seriously. “Always.” She lifts her head to kiss him slowly and she pushes him onto his back as they both undo his jeans, she didn’t want to play, they didn’t need to build up, they’d done that already, for far too long.

The moment they’ve stripped down she waits for him to put on a condom before he’s back over her and then inside her and she moans loudly arching underneath him. It’s all controlled, deep and slow as they kiss, tongues sliding in time with their bodies. It drags on, pleasure slowly building till she was sure she couldn’t take anymore, and it’s only then does their movements speed up as she cries out loudly, falling over the edge before joining her not long after with a sharp cry of her name.

After, Laura lays there sleepily as Jenson curls up behind her pressing kisses to neck and shoulder. And right now she refused to dwell on what this all meant as she let herself enjoy the moment, her hands clutching his arms tightly that were around her and in response he shuffles closer his lips brushing her ears as he whispers, “I’m not going anywhere…” She closes her eyes and sighs before drifting off.

 

 

*        *        *

“Is it true?”

Lillian looks up at Laura who was standing there with her hands on her hips. She knew exactly what this was about, she’d barely unpacked since her return from Italy, however she feigns innocence. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Ferrari Lillian. Fucking Ferrari! What about me? Don’t you want to work for me!?”

“You fired me,” Lillian reminds her bluntly. She was pretty sure if she nagged enough she could get her old position back that Miles was pretty much doing, but she wanted her own thing. And she was over studying, she did her job fine without qualifications and doing odds and ends and consulting work this year was dead boring.

“You’re going to work with Fernando and Sebastian next season? We hate both of them!”

“You hate both of them,” Lillian tells her calmly. “I only have issues with Fernando.” Laura was looking more upset than furious, like she was somehow being betrayed. “Anyway, Fernando isn’t at Ferrari next year.”

“Right…” Laura had forgotten that fact. Though the other driver had yet to be announced, despite the season coming to a close.

“I get to go to the races, we can hang out…” Lillian tries to get her to understand.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this. You’re choosing Sebastian over me!”

Only Laura would see it like that. “No, I am doing something I want for a change. You might be the star in this family Laura, but the rest of us don’t have to follow you around blindly.” She can see that cuts, but Lillian doesn’t care, because sometimes Laura really did think the world revolved around her.

“Fine. Go to Ferrari,” she snaps. “Do something you want. I wonder how long it will take till you end up sleeping with both drivers.”

Low blow. “Be pissed all you like Laura. But don’t for one moment think you have your life anymore together than mine,” she retorts. “Up until last week, you and Jenson were still dancing around each other. And don’t get me started on your fucked-up relationship with Sebastian.”

That has her sister slam her mouth closed and there’s a tense silence before Laura changes the subject. “You coming to the US with us? We should win the constructors, there’ll be a party…”

“Can’t. I have some work I need to do.” She really did, it wasn’t her just having a gripe but from the look on Laura’s face it’s clear she doesn’t believe that. “I can come to Brazil?”

Laura shakes her head. “Don’t bother.”

Lillian sighs as Laura walks back out and slams the door. Well that went well.

 

*        *        *

 

“Don’t!” Jenson blocks her path into McLaren and grabs her elbow to drag her back out quickly before she can enter. It was Thursday and she was looking to have lunch with him and Lewis. “We will lunch at Red Bull today.”

Laura cocks her head at him. They never ate lunch at the RBR Energy Station.

“Lewis is pissed about his car. Apparently, there is a foot print on the back of the passenger seat and he’s on a right rant about it. Not to mention hand smudges on the glass and he’s complete paranoia that the police are going to work out it was his car that was in a short high speed chase a week ago.”

Laura wishes he wouldn’t mention the last part. “He’s overreacting.”

“It’s Lewis,” Jenson smiles as they walk through the paddock.

“Did you speak to uh… Jennifer?”

Jenson looks up at her and gives her a smile. “I ended things with her after Singapore Laura.”

She looks up at him surprised. She didn’t know that. Was that because she went and saw him after his accident? “You didn’t say anything.”

“I was waiting for the right moment to talk to you,” he tells her as they move past some RBR guys and head inside. “Lucky I did, I had a great card to play.”

She hits him lightly as they jog up the stairs to grab a table outside on the roof where it was nice weather. They eat lunch together, chatting. It’s only when they’re finishing does she notice two pairs of eyes staring at them – Sebastian and Rocky.

“Right, I have autographing,” Jenson says standing up. “I’ll see you tonight yeah?”

“Yep,” she smiles, and he catches her hand and squeezes it before he walks off. Jenson had barely left when Rocky was immediately in his seat.

“Aston, you’re breaking my bleeding heart,” he tells her looking positively upset. “You and Jenson? I don’t ship you and Jenson!”

Laura tries not to choke on her water. “This isn’t a TV show or a book, Rocky. And Jenson and I are just friends.” She was going to use that line for as long as possible. Best not reveal you’re in a relationship with a fellow rival.

“Sebastian looked like he was going to murder Jenson. He has feelings for Aston, can’t you see that?”

“You need to butt out,” Laura tells him sharply. “You are living in an imaginary world Rocky.”

“I saw what I saw, it wasn’t nothing,” Rocky reminds her, and she winces remembering her and Sebastian’s heated kisses they exchanged. “It’s fine,” he shakes his head standing up. “I’ll work something out.”

“You’ll work something out?” she asks eyes widening. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Rocky though keeps walking. “Rocquelin!” He only waves at her over his shoulder.

She gets up and heads downstairs and finds Sebastian standing with Molly. “Keep your engineer in line,” she snaps at him.

“Keep your boyfriend out of team facilities,” Sebastian tells her.

“Please, don’t be so fucking petty. And he’s not my boyfriend,” she bites back.

“That line is getting old Aston. And as for Rocky, good luck. He’s not my problem in a few months and rumour has it, he’s all yours next year.” He smiles at her sweetly. “It’s your turn to put up with the shit that I have had to deal with because of that incident.”

Molly who had been watching them bicker interrupts then. “What incident?”

“Nothing,” both of them reply as they glare at each other before Laura spins on her heel and stomps away.

 

*         *        *

 

For a race where they were sure to secure the constructors championship and where qualifying had delivered the team a front row with her on pole, it hadn’t gone exactly to plan. It had been another race where she & Sebastian had been fighting, he pushed her every lap. He was faster, and she knew he would jump her in the stops when she couldn’t pull any kind of lead. So, the fact that he made a move two laps _before_ the stops, diving down the inside in a place where you can’t overtake and then _touched_ her, pushing her off track left her furious. She’d not only lost the lead but second place as well.

Another third place with Lewis second. The three of them were becoming permanent fixtures in the press conference. This one though she was fuming and making no effort to hide it, despite the championship win, and being hugged by the team isn’t what she wanted right now. And the press conference was just a reason for the media to dig in the knife.

“Laura, congratulations to you and the team for securing the constructors championship. But it was a race with another incredible scrap with your teammate this race. There was contact.”

She doesn’t pass up the opportunity to respond and she can feel him moving next to her as he plays with his race suit. “I’m happy for the team. It’s been a lot of hard work. But it would have been a clean race if it wasn’t for that incident and it cost the team a 1 – 2 finish. I had the racing line and Vettel should have yielded. It was a stupid error that cost me.”

She can hear Seb suck in his breath and she turns to meet his glare. “It was a racing incident,” Sebastian responds. “These things happen.”

She was angry and frustrated. Every time she was presented with a win something went wrong. And this time it was due to an incompetent teammate. She storms through RBR motorhome in search for Christian ready to let rip about the rules that stemmed from their earlier shunt when she’s grabbed roughly by the arm. It was Seb and he pulls her after him, and her attention now flicking to the cause of her rage. When he lets go she follows him to his motorhome where he holds the door open for her and then slams it closed.

“Are you going to hold everything against me?” He doesn’t yell but she can see he is struggling to keep his voice in check.

“That was your fault! You should have yielded!”

“Or you could have left some more room for your teammate,” he retaliates.

“Don’t you dare think you can win this with my argument from Spain! I wasn’t supported with that and you don’t get that privilege just because you’re fighting for the damn championship!”

“You should be helping me!”

“I don’t have to do anything,” she seethes. “And you cost me second place!”

“Well get over it,” he shouts back. “We just won the fucking championship!”

She yanks open the door to his room and storms out aware that there were team members staring in their direction. Too angry to be embarrassed she storms to her own room, so she can shower. The last thing she wanted to do tonight was celebrate.

 

*         *        *

Jenson had let himself into Laura’s room and winces at the raised voices of Laura and her brother. He didn’t doubt she’d be in a foul mood after the race today, but he had been hoping she’d cooled down.

“Fucking get dressed Laura!”

“And I said I have a headache and don’t feel like going!”

“You’re being a selfish fucking child right now! This isn’t about you tonight, it’s for the team so get off you damn ass!”

Jenson raises an eyebrow at them both, Laura was currently waving the finger at her brother before her eyes turn to him, ready to unleash on him if he stepped wrong. “Hi.”

“She’s your girlfriend, you deal with her,” Miles snapped at Jenson and he looks startled. He was meant to make Laura do something she didn’t want to do? He didn’t need to be hated on right now. “I have a date.”

Laura’s mood changes. “You have a date? Who are you dating?” she demands.

“You want to know baby sister, get dressed and join your fucking team like the good team player you’re supposed to be.” Miles then jerks the door open and stalks out, door echoing loudly behind him.

Jenson clears his throat. “You know he’s right don’t you?”

“Who do you think he’s seeing?” she asks completely ignoring his comment, but she at least makes a move to her things to find something to wear.

“I haven’t seen Miles with anyone that’s not the usual,” he shrugs.

With a dress in her hands, Laura comes over and kisses him lightly. “Hi.”

He smiles back at her, “Hi.” He resists kissing her again and risk them get distracted. “Get dressed, it will be a good night. Alcohol, celebrating a team win, it can’t end up badly.” Laura only snorts disappearing into the bathroom leaving the door open, which he uses as an opportunity to watch her – definitely not helping with avoiding delaying them anymore than they were going to be.

“Maybe Sebastian won’t come?” Laura suggests to him.

“Yep, I’m sure he won’t come,” he lies.

The one thing he couldn’t wrap his head around was Laura and her relationship with Vettel. He still couldn’t believe they slept together, but when he poked her on that point she told him they weren’t talking about it because it was one off and it was buried in the deep recesses of her head and she wasn’t going to dredge that up. Whatever the hell was between them, it wasn’t love, but Jenson’s not quite convinced it was all hate either.

It’s lucky for him that Laura doesn’t take long to get ready, he figures she wasn’t putting in the effort on purpose, but hell she still looked amazing in a short black dress and her hair free and past her shoulders, she rarely wore it down. He drags her out of the room the moment she has shoes because otherwise they would be in the bed and he didn’t need to be on the end of a rant from Miles.

The Red Bull team had hired some venue for the night and it was packed by the time they arrived. A lot of the Toro Rosso team were present, including Daniel who had of course delivered a win for the team this season. And it’s Daniel who is thrusting them tequila shots declaring that they needed to catch up as they were late, Laura’s is gone before he can blink, clearly deciding she was going to take his advice when it came to alcohol. In fact, his shot is taken from him the moment she lays eyes on her teammate, and she swallows that as well.

It’s quite a few hours and a lot of drinks later, more for Laura than himself when he finds himself watching his girlfriend standing barefoot on the bar next to Daniel, both dancing and singing at the top of their lungs. The team swirling below them singing and jumping along. Laura was well passed tipsy and Jenson was slightly worried that her growing lack of balance was going to see her fall. He makes his way closer only to find himself next to Sebastian at the front, eyes glued to Laura, nowhere near as drunk and looking as if he was ready to catch her or possibly yank her down.

“You should be up there,” Jenson tells him,

Sebastian looks over at him surprised at his presence. Jenson notices his eyes are wide, slightly glassy. Yeah, he wasn’t sober. But were any of them? Sebastian made a protest, but the moment the suggestion is made, the guys around had agreed, and Sebastian finds himself being lifted up to join both Daniel and Laura. He looks embarrassed more than anything, but he does sing along with the others.

The three of them with their arms around each other, Laura apparently long passed her mood from earlier as she stands next to Sebastian, arm around his waist as they both enjoy themselves. He takes out his phone and grabs a picture of the three of them and goes to post it to Twitter along with a selfie of himself out at the RBR party.

“Hey!”

Jenson turns around to see Miles there.

“You looking after Laura tonight?” His eyes are looking concerned at his mostly wasted sister who was actually enjoying herself.

“I’ll make sure she gets back safely,” he promises. Miles slaps his arm before turns to grab the hand of the woman behind him, pulling her after him. His eyes widen slightly and brings up his drink to lips to have another sip. Yep, he was not the one breaking that news to Laura.

It was much later, after one short bathroom break that Jenson finds himself with a problem. He has lost three very wasted Red Bull drivers from the thinning party, only to be told they’d left together. “Fuck.” If the three of them were together, surely they’d be fine?

 

*        *        *


	10. Chasing After Wants

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last part got so long I had to break it up into 2 parts, so there will be one more chapter after this rather than it being the final. I'm sure no one will complain about having to read extra parts though.

 

Laura’s eyes flicker open only to slam closed again because the world was too bright. Why did it feel like the sun was in her room? And her bed was hard and very cold… Oh god. There are snapshots from last night, hazy and blurry. There was far too much alcohol consumed, her head was killing her. She rolls over and there’s a body next to her. She pushes her face into the warm arm trying to find relief from the light and the throbbing. She only freezes when another body presses into her from behind, chasing the warmth that had rolled away.

Laura now opens her eyes and hastily sits up. Two bodies? What did she do last night! Her stomach lurches at the sudden movement and she’s horrified to find the sun wasn’t in her room but was in the sky above. “Oh fuck…” It takes far too much effort to get to her feet, the tarmac beneath her bare feet uncomfortable.

She was at the track? She was lying on the circuit? She spins around and realises they were at turn one. She looks down at her sleeping companions to see two passed out drivers in the form of her teammate and future teammate. “Holy shit,” she breathes out. She wants her phone but she has nothing on her, not even her shoes.

She bends down and shakes Daniel but he bats at her and rolls over away. She goes to Seb, “Get up,” she hisses at him and his eyes flutter open at her voice. “We need a phone.”

“Aston?” He looks at her with a blurry gaze. “Fuck…” he groans before his face goes an odd shade of an off-white greenish colour as he scrambles to his feet and Laura watches as he stumbles to the grass to promptly throw up. Laura turns away trying her hardest to not join him.

“Oh god, kill me now,” Sebastian groans sinking to his hands and knees, as if it was too much energy to remain upright.

“I need a phone,” she tells him trying hard not to panic.

“Stop yelling,” Sebastian whispers to her, but he pulls out his phone and it skids across the ground to her.

She snatches it up. “I wasn’t,” she snaps at him, her headache getting worse if it was possible... Her face pales when she notice the time and all the missed calls and messages on Sebastian’s phone. “What time was our flights?”

Sebastian who had pushed his cheek to ground, eyes closed as he groaned, suddenly snaps them open at the question. “Seven.”

“It’s ten fucking am.” They were all going to be in so much trouble. She scrolls through Molly’s messages which she was getting increasingly more cross and using more expletive language. The last one says to call Jenson. “We are in so much fucking trouble.”

“I’m going to kill Daniel,” Sebastian says, but it’s hardly threatening, it’s a whimpered threat.

Despite the text that says to call Jenson, she starts with Miles but there was no answer, nor from Molly. She then calls Jenson who promptly answers.

“It’s about time!”

“Fuck,” she whispers at the loud greeting. “Please do not yell right now.”

“Laura? Where the hell are you?”

When she tells him, Janson’s shock goes to outright hysterical laughter, but he does promise to get them, telling her to meet him in the public car park. Laura hangs up the phone and looks at the waiting Sebastian. “Car park.”

“Who did you call?” he asks, still on the ground and looking worse. “Please tell me you called Molly?”

“Molly didn’t answer,” she mutters. “How do you want to wake up sleeping beauty?”

“Let’s leave him here,” Sebastian suggests attempting to push himself up.

“Do you think if we finally make it to Brazil we will be in more or less trouble if we show up without him?”

Wiping at his mouth, Sebastian moves next to her as both stare at Daniel who had now spread out like a starfish on the ground. “What we need is something loud.”

Laura winces. “That seems like punishment for us.”

The end up kicking at him till he wakes up, ordering him up and to the carpark. There was much confusion, and then panic before Daniel, like Sebastian ended up leaving his mark next to the track. Neither Laura or Sebastian wait for him, leaving him to trail after them.

“I’ve decided you might not be the worst teammate,” Laura mutters as they walk slowly, Laura trying to find the smoothest and softest patches of ground for her feet.

“Might be the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Sebastian returns reaching to steady her as she tries to step over the trash left from the race. “Where are your shoes?”

“Very, very good question,” Laura answers and both turn to look at Daniel, a sorry figure trailing behind them. “Maybe Daniel can answer that.”

“Last thing you remember?”

“Dancing on the bar.”

Sebastian’s face moves into a slow smile at the memory.

“You?”

“Daniel riding a mechanical bull.”

Definitely no memory of that. There was a lot of jumbled memories of different bars and clubs. But nothing makes sense. “I feel like there is six heavy metal bands playing in my head, all competing with each other. I’d give anything for pain killers.”

Sebastian’s hand falls to the back of her neck, before his fingers slide into her hair, pressing and massaging gently as they went and it might be heaven as she groaned her appreciation. “I hope this is the right car park,” Laura says when they finally stop in the first one they see. Her feet were aching, not to mention they were filthy. She wanted a shower.

Daniel finally joins them, whispering he was in hell. Laura promptly tells him they’re not talking to him and shuffles close to Sebastian, who uses it as an opportunity to wrap his arm around her and pull her into his side. She holds onto the back of his shirt.

“At least you two have kissed and made up,” Daniel stares at them. “All cosy…” he stops suddenly eyes widening.

“What?” Laura demands as Sebastian lets her go.

“I just remembered something…” He was digging out his phone.

“That is not the face of I remembered something good,” Laura moves to look at his phone and he was loading up Instagram.

“If there is one goddamn photo of us on social media Daniel…” Laura’s voice trembles in warning. She stops and snatches the phone of him to scroll through photos of them last night. “No…”

“We did shots with these guys…”

“I am so fired,” she whispers as Sebastian takes the phone from her.

“Aston you look plastered,” Sebastian says before wincing when he’s looking at his own photos. None of them were pretty. “These are not as great as your swimsuit picture.”

She glares at him snatching the phone back. There were a lot of pictures of them doing shots. Not one picture did she look in any control. Maybe you could argue she looked happy? There’s one picture of her sitting on Dan’s lap, leaning back against Sebastian who was seated next to him. Underneath there was a caption that said _Redbull drivers have kissed and made up. Alcohol solves all problems_.

Laura was ready to strangle him when there’s a car pulling up. She can feel Sebastian stiffen next to her. “You called Jenson?”

“He wasn’t my first choice,” Laura tells him annoyed. “Everyone else is on a plane to the next damn race.”

Jenson gets out of the car with far too much pep. “Right don’t move!” He tells them grabbing his phone as the three of them stand there. “This is going to be the perfect ‘after’ photo of your celebration party.” Laura’s quick enough to hold up the finger for the photo.

“I’m going to kill you.”

“Aston sweetheart, I am saving your ass, so be nice,” he warns to her. “And I brought you all gifts,” he tells them cheerily.

“Can you maybe bring them quieter?” Daniel asks as they move to the car. “And not with a smile?”

Jenson ignores him. “Sunglasses to help.”

All three take a pair, happily sliding them on and being able to escape the sun.

“Painkillers and a lot of water.”

All gifts are gratefully consumed with muttered thank yous.

“We’re straight to the airport from here…”

Laura immediately looks down at herself. There was no way she was going to the airport looking like this.

“I have all your stuff, I think. I didn’t pack it. Molly and Miles did that.”

“Where is my brother?”

“I quote,” Jenson does air quotes, “See you in Brazil can’t wait to hear you explain this to Christian.” And because it was my job to bring you back safely last night, I have the honoured task of ensuring you at least make the race.”

“I am going to kill him and maybe you.” She can’t believe Miles upped and left. And if Jenson was meant to look after her, he failed on many levels. If he thought he was getting laid anytime soon, he was _very_ mistaken.

“Can you all argue in a quieter… preferably _silent_ volume?” Daniel asks.

“Can I just get my toothbrush?” Sebastian asks.

They do fall silent as the three of them get ready in the carpark. Teeth brushing. Changing of clothes. Laura washes her feet with the water and drags on some fresh clothes on the other side of the car. She’s buttoning up a shirt trying not to choke on the amount of deodorant that was currently being sprayed by Daniel and Sebastian.

“Hey,” Jenson says moving to lean on the car next to her. “You okay?”

“No. I feel like utter shit.”

“Come here,” he says reaching for her and pulling her towards him. “You at least had fun last night.”

“Well, it would be nice to remember that,” she responds flatly but happily falls against him. “I want to sleep.”

“On the plane,” he tells her kissing the top of her head. “Come on, don’t want to miss another flight.”

“I thought we were in a hurry?” Sebastian interrupts them, eyes darkening and mouth pressing in a thin line.

“We are,” Jenson beams at him.

Jenson insists on playing the radio to the airport, singing along, ignoring any protests from his passengers who were all slumped in their seats, wearing sunglasses and cradling their water.

They only just make the plane. And once seated, Laura doesn’t even care if her last minute seat is next to Sebastian. At least it wasn’t Daniel. She sleeps for the whole flight, head on Sebastian’s arm, till she’s jolted awake when they touch down.

Now to face the music…

 

*        *        *

She’s not sure which was worse – Christian going off at her and Sebastian post Spain and their collision, or now as she stands between Sebastian and Daniel. Her head was still aching, but she didn’t think telling him to lower his voice would be wise so she was keeping her mouth shut and taking her very loud lecture.

The three of them would be overtime on media commitments, particularly as her and Sebastian had already missed a sponsor event. She’s not sure she’s up to facing cameras and crowds but again she was going to keep that to herself. She was happy to escape to her brother when they were done, who looked almost as furious as their team boss.

It’s a miserable day. She lives on water and pain killers. She’s sure that her and Sebastian were failing at the happy smiles as they went about their day. She wants to crawl into bed and sleep. She was never, ever, going to forgive Daniel for this. She hopes he’s suffering worse than they were.

 

*        *        *

“I have never liked so many pictures on Instagram,” Rocky comments to Sebastian when he appears at the track.

“You are going to make my headache return,” Sebastian responds as Molly disappears to prepare for the Thursday activities.

“But you almost look like friends,” Rocky declares and Sebastian is waved pictures of the three of them from last Sunday night, and they all had he and Aston holding each other.

“This is why I hate social media,” Sebastian tells him shoving his phone from his field of vision. He really didn’t have a lot of memories from the night, but Aston held on to everyone because from what he did remember she was well beyond plastered and had fuck all balance. He still isn’t sure how she managed to not be sick when he did not drink as much as she did.

“I have decided to help you,” Rocky says putting his phone away and Sebastian raises his eyebrows though he’s not sure he wants to know. “To win her from Jenson.”

“No.” He walks away then without another word and ignoring Rocky’s attempt to discuss it further. He’d rather face the fucking press than deal with Rocky right now.

 

*        *        *

 

“You are alive!” Lewis grins at her as Laura drops down at the table with he and Jenson.

“Head all better?” Jenson.

“Yeah.” Her mood though is still sour. Annoyed at her extra press work the last few days and annoyed at herself for being more irresponsible than usual. That was not her, that was Lillian and as if a reminder her phone vibrates in her pocket with another message from her sister. She yanks it out her pocket and slams it out the table.

“So do I get to know all the juicy details from your night out?” Lewis asks.

“You can ask, I have no answers,” Laura shrugs. “And I’d rather talk about something else.” She watches her phone vibrate again on the table.

Jenson reaches over and grabs her phone. “What’s with Lillian?”

“Lillian,” Laura huffs, “Is letting me know every picture she’s using from Sunday night in a new collage she’s creating. She’s calling it ‘Don’t ever go off at me again about being irresponsible’. She’s enjoying this far to fucking much.”

Jenson laughs and leans over, “I’m enjoying this far too fucking much.”

“And that is why you’re not getting any,” she pushes him away. “That and the fucking after picture you posted on Twitter.”

“That got a lot of likes,” Lewis defends him and Laura gives him the finger which only makes him grin. “Come on Aston, so you enjoyed yourself. You won the constructors. No one cares, well maybe your bosses do, but generally everyone loves that you guys were celebrating.”

“Well I just want to focus on the race. Get pole. Win. Go home.”

“But I want to win,” Lewis tells her.

“And I want to win,” Jenson adds.

“Because no one ever lets me get what I want,” she pouts.

“And where would the fun be Aston if we all didn’t fight over the same thing?” Lewis asks.

“True, but this one is mine. I feel it,” she tells him confidently and she did. No one was beating her this weekend.

 

*        *        *

 

She’s literally freezing her ass off. Racing in Brazil was not meant to be cold but since she woke up this morning it had been miserable weather and it was pretty much a washout for first free practice. Though there was still twenty minutes to go, not that anyone had hit the track. Laura was using this time to try and warm up to Jenson outside the McLaren garages. She was failing, but there was only so much you can do discreetly.

She was standing in front of him, back pressed to him, but it wasn’t enough. She pushes her hands behind before they’re wandering in the hopes she can find skin for her cold fingers…

“Don’t do it Laura,” Jenson warns with a smile, hands catching hers and squeezing them. “You can stop standing in the wet you know.”

“Fine,” she says tearing herself away. “I’m going to find coffee.” Yanking her sleeves as low as possible to try and cover her hands she heads back to the Red Bull garages. The poor fans sitting in the stands waiting for action, never going to happen, the track was flooded.

“Laura.”

“I’m still not talking to you Dan,” she says speeding up but he only seems to skip besides her.

“You can’t be mad at me forever,” he gives her a mock pout. “I didn’t pour the tequila into your mouth…” He stops. “Or did I?”

She won’t comment, she was going back to giving him the silent treatment.

“Are you ignoring Seb too? He’s not exactly innocent.” Dan stops and grins. “You probably ignore him everyday of the week. Scrap that.”

Laura rolls her eyes and dives under the rope at the front of garage and into the mostly dry garage, leaving Dan in the wet. Her brother is there holding out a cup of coffee for her and she dives for it. “Have I told you, you are my favourite person today?”

“Not Jenson?” Miles teases.

She turns around when there is a roar from the crowd. She purses her lips as she Dan skipping up and down the pitlane trying to entertain the crowd. She rolls her eyes.

“Don’t do that,” Miles scolds. “You could be a bit more fan friendly.”

“I am very fan friendly! I entertain them all the time! Have you not seen fucking Instagram?”

Miles raises his eyebrows. “I don’t think that counts. Entertain them,” he waves his hand at Daniel. “Dare you.”

“Fine,” she hands her coffee back and heads back into the wet, ducking out to Daniel who seems delighted to have company in the mostly empty pit lane.

“Laura,” he grins his cheeky grin and holds out his hand to her.

She takes it hesitantly only to find herself being spun around. “God Daniel!” she nearly topples over.

“Have you ever danced in the rain?” he asks taking her into his arms as he forces her into overexaggerated moves as he dips her back.

“No,” but she smiles, unable to resist before she’s being spun around again. It might be the thing only Dan can do, spin them, twirl her and dip her. She was going to fall over on her face at any moment. But the cheers for them were loud and when she’s spun towards the garage she can see they had attracted a lot of the team, even Sebastian was watching somewhat amused.

Daniel spins her away and towards Doug, one of her mechanics. She laughs as he takes her hand and Daniel’s spot. “I feel like we need music,” she tells him as he clumsily dances with her. Daniel was trying to coax Christian to dance with him to no avail, but a few of the other mechanics were joining them, dancing with each other.

When she’s released, breathless she goes back to the pits where Miles was standing next to Sebastian. “Do I get a gold star?” she asks her brother.

“I’ll get you a gold star,” he promises laughing and handing back her coffee.

“Come on Sebastian,” she nudges him forward. “Go woo them.”

He looks over at her. “Daniel has a dance partner already.” He gives her a mock pout and she grins.

“I’m sure someone will dance with you…”

“You Aston?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.

“So you can tread on my feet and injure me?” She shakes her head at him. “Never.”

“I promise I can dance…” He holds out his hand to her and she stares at it for a moment before hesitantly taking it.

“You stomp on one toe…” she warns as she is once more forced to give up her coffee. He doesn’t answer instead puts a hand on her waist and pulls her closer as he takes her other hand. And it turns out he’s not half bad as he waltz’s with her. “So you can dance,” she tries to brush it off and he grins at her.

“I took lessons,” he reveals as he guides them around much to the delight of the team and spectators.

“Why would you take lessons?” Sebastian as a dancer doesn’t seem right.

“For the only reason men generally take dance lessons.” His smile seems to falter and Laura frowns before she understands. _Oh_. Wedding. Sebastian was engaged? She wants to ask but he cuts her off before she can even start, “Don’t.”

The rain was getting heavier again and most of the guys were once more taking shelter. “Sorry,” she tells him sincerely.

“Come on Aston, you’re meant to have a heart stone,” he reminds her and then he spins her away from him, only clutching her hand as he faces the crowd and she follows when he takes a bow before they both bolt back for the garage as the skies open and it pours. If she was wet before, she’s now drenched.

 

*          *        *

 

Second last race of the season and she’d qualified on pole with Sebastian directly behind her. This was probably the situation that Christian hoped wouldn’t occur with the championship so close – taking places from Sebastian when he needed all the points against Lewis. But she was not moving over under any circumstances, no matter what and despite the harsh reminder her and Sebastian were both given to keep their track behaviour clean.

Ha. Fighting Sebastian on track was half the fun and the little smirk she had as she walked out of the post qualifying briefings is shared with Sebastian as they both fight to get out of the door at the same time – Sebastian wins that fight with a comment of, “Just confirming finishing positions tomorrow.”

 

On the grid on Sunday, she has so much nervous energy, she can’t stop fidgeting and bouncing on the grid. She was doing her best to avoid the media, trying to keep her head focused as she stands with Phil. Miles was not too far away, chatting to the team and media. Her eyes look across the grid, through the swarm of people and till they fall on Sebastian standing with his trainer. He looked calm, relaxed, everything that she wasn’t.

“You okay?” Phil asks quietly.

“Let me in the car, I’ll be fine,” Laura tells him wanting to get this over and done with. Everything would fade away once she was in the car.

And when she’s in, seatbelts done up, engine roaring to life, then the rest of the world finally does disappear. There’s the warm up lap as she sets up everything in preparation of a perfect start, knowing she needed to be first after the first corner. Waiting for the lights, it’s the longest moment of her life before finally – _lights out_.

Her start is perfect, Sebastian’s better as they line up side by side racing towards the first corner. He has to know she won’t give him one fucking inch as she takes the racing line – he gives her the space and she floors it out of the first corner holding the lead, _just._ Sebastian is quick, but she’s faster, slowly widening the gap between them. If the gap was big enough there’s be no room for strategy to swap the positions, if the gap was big enough, no one would doubt she deserved this.

She treats each lap like qualifying, hoping she wasn’t destroying her tyres too soon as the lead only grows. She pits, still holding her position over Sebastian as she sets about repeating it all again – fast laps and praying the tyres hold out to the end. The gap is more than enough, Sebastian caught up battling Lewis for second, and it’s only then does Laura begin to think that she was _this_ close… so close…

Crossing the finish line she screams into her helmet as she pumps a fist into the air. It felt like it taken too long, like it might not have ever happened… And the moment she gets to parc-ferme she jumps from the car, standing on a wheel as the crowd roars. This feeling has to be better than any drug induced high.

She jumps off and spying her brother amongst the Red Bull team screaming and cheering she runs at him. She jumps at him over the barrier clinging to him hard as she blinks away her tears. Because this was real as he hugs her hard grabbing her helmeted head telling her that their dad would be so proud. She doesn’t want to let go but she’s dropped back to her feet, the rest of the team jumping on her as she grabs at hands before running back to the garage, jumping as she does. She was so incredibly pumped and high it takes her a moment to realise the driver swinging her around after she’s weighed is Jenson.

He is grinning from ear to ear telling her he is so proud and happy. She couldn’t wipe the smile off her face from the podium to the press conference. It’s all a blur as she buzzes on her high. And not once does she care that Sebastian doesn’t offer her congratulations, or look at her, or give one comment because there was nothing he could do that would destroy her mood.

Back at the team motorhome she’s hugged hard by Christian and once more embraced by her brother. There are team pictures and promises of a huge party, but partying was something she wasn’t sure she was ready to repeat after last race… but maybe one drink…

 

*         *        *

 

Sebastian was leaning against the bar, drink untouched in his fingers – he wasn’t drinking unless it was water but he wasn’t rude enough to turn down the drink that was purchased for him. His eyes drift around the room, and back to the one point they seemed to be constantly drawn, Laura Aston.

He’d never seen her so bright, shining with nothing but joy. She was dancing with everyone and no one on the dance floor, looking light and carefree. She was bouncing from her brother, between the mechanics and other guys, not even Jenson gets to keep his hold. He was struggling to look away, she was shining from her win and it was captivating; he felt like a moth to the flame.

But he couldn’t touch her, couldn’t do anything to her. God, and all the things running through his head that he wants to do… He brings the glass to his lips and takes a large mouthful. None of the things he wants to do to Aston are rated PG. He wants a piece of that happiness, not because he wants to take it from her, hurt her, but because it was hers. And in this moment, he was pretty sure he had never wanted anyone as much as he wants her.

When his glass is empty he dumps it on the bar and heads towards her, making his way through the groups of people towards the dance floor. He’s not sure what he’s doing or what he’ll do when he gets there but he doesn’t care as shifts his way till he was in her line of sight and before he can blink she’s in front of him and then against him. He’s sure all the air was sucked away from around him as she wraps an arm around his neck.

“Have you finally come to say congratulations?” she asks, nothing but smiles.

“Aren’t you tired of hearing that already?” he asks, hands falling to hips and then sliding to the small of her back.

“Tired of hearing congratulations for beating you?” She cocks her head at him. “That will _never_ get old.” She was hanging off him as she stares at him expectantly, “So?”

He shrugs. “You did okay.”

She rises against him, lips against his ear making him shiver, “Liar. You know I’m amazing.” She twists in his arms then, so her back was against his chest and his hands now glide across her stomach as she moves against him to the music. He sucks in his breath when she presses her ass against his crotch and he knows how very deliberate she was being right now and how her grinding into him was not helping his situation at all.

He grabs her hand and spins her away from him before pulling her back to him, this time ensuring she was facing him. “You have to make my life so hard?”

Her eyes sparkle brightly as she laughs. “Apparently.”

He rolls his eyes as she tightens her hold as he pulls her closer. He bends his head and breathes her in, forgetting where they were and that maybe this wasn’t the most appropriate place. Not that she stopped him or said anything. “You want me to say congratulations?” he asks when he finally lifts his head.

“Yes.” No hesitation as her hands runs across his chest and shoulders, never still.

He turns them around and away from as many eyes as possible as he tells her seriously, “I’ll say it. In private. Alone.”

He can feel her breath hitch, her movements falter before her smile was back in force. “Is that how you congratulate the other drivers?”

“Just you Aston, only you,” he tells her as his hands skim her ass.

Their movements stop and Laura stares at him before her mouth draws closer to his. He hopes the trembling he feels was only on the inside when her lips stop inches from his. “Never happening Vettel. Not in this lifetime.” She moves away from him then but he’s quick, yanking her back to him.

“You forget Aston, it’s not never,” he tells her, hands moving over her, never still, trying to take as much as he could. “We’ve already been there and it’s only a matter time before we end up in the same place.”

She looks up at him, eyes a little wider, a little more breathless. “Maybe… but not tonight,” she tells him and then she rips herself from his grip and he watches her leave the dancefloor.

He takes a moment to pull himself back together before he follows. Aston now next to Jenson, tucked under his arm. He glares at them, at Jenson who was now meeting his gaze and he doesn’t care if Jenson sees, knows what he wants, not right now. He hopes he knows because it might not be tonight, but he had no doubt where he and Aston would end up. Jenson or no fucking Jenson.

And he didn’t need Rocky’s help to get what he fucking wanted.

 

*         *        *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really feel like i need a beta for this and the future parts. I can't pick up all the errors and it really irks me. Does anyone want to beta or recommend someone? I would be really appreciative! Maybe come message me on Tumblr @ itszephoria 
> 
> I just started an account so feel free to come follow me or say hello! I can be super shy but I promise I won't bite :)


	11. T'is The Season, T'is The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my lovely beta for reading through this - @formulaoneisfast

“I feel like I’m at the principals’ office,” Laura mutters curling her fingers tightly, so she didn’t start taking her worry out on her nails. While she was seated, Sebastian was standing opposite, leaning against a wall looking a little calmer than she felt.

They’d been ordered to Austria post Brazil by Christian. She figured it wasn’t enough to be told off by Christian for their tardiness in Brazil and now they had to face Dietrich Mateschitz. She begins biting at a thumb nail.

“I’m sure he wants to congratulate us in person for winning the Constructors,” Sebastian tells her.

“Do you think he has Instagram?”

“Of course not,” Sebastian tells her, but his calm façade fades a little. “It’s not about that otherwise Daniel would be here as well.”

Laura huffs wincing as she tears a chunk of nail a little too deep. “If we get a lecture and he’s not here to suffer with us…” She looks at her thumb and goes to try and neaten it with her teeth before Sebastian strides over and sits down, grabbing her hand holding it tightly in his.

“He’s going to tell us how wonderful we’ve been,” Sebastian assures her.

“It’s not fair. You don’t have a contract that can be torn up,” she mutters.

“That’s a good point,” he grins at her and she glares at him. He lifts her hand up and looks at her thumb. “You haven’t done this since Australia,” he comments.

She immediately stiffens, going rigid next to him but if he notices he says nothing. She pulls her hand back from his grip.

“One more race Aston and then we’re free of each other.”

She looks over at him. “No, not quite.” She was wondering if at this point they’d ever be free of each other – they’d still be fighting each other next year; different colours didn’t change that fact.

“Well, there will be a whole lot less of each other.”

She smiles and sighs loudly, “Bliss.” Less was definitely better.

He grins but whatever he was going to comment is lost when Dietrich appears, but the broad smile he wore at the sight of them halts her thumb returning to her mouth. So, they’re not here about their drunken adventures in Texas.

They’re offered their congratulations in person, invited to a dinner with Dietrich and close personal friends. And no matter how politely and dazzling the invitation is framed, it was nothing more than a sponsor like event where her and Sebastian were the entertainment – ready to smile and dazzle. She shouldn’t care, not when this could have gone much worse. She can do one impromptu dinner.

 

Laura hangs back as the group moves ahead. Dietrich was giving a tour of the hangars with his very important guests, but what she wanted was a more hands on experience. She sips at her wine casually as she walks backwards and out of sight.

“Aston,” Sebastian raised his eyebrows at her, “You coming?”

She pushes her finger to her lips and shakes her head.

“What are you doing?” Sebastian asks moving after her trying to decide if he was going to be annoyed or interested.

“I want to get in the plane,” she tells him looking at the different aircraft that surrounds them.

“Don’t be stupid, come on.” He reaches for her hand and she immediately turns and starts weighing up which one she could actually get into since no one had left a ladder around for her.

“Aston,” Sebastian hisses after her. “You cannot be serious.”

“Run along Sebastian,” she calls back to him waving at him to turn around.

“It’s almost like you want Dietrich to actually yell at us about something,” Sebastian tells her, but he was following her.

“If you’re staying,” she smiles at him, “You’re going to help me get into my friend here.” She stops next to a silver plane and placing her wine glass on the ground out of the way. “It’s called Lightening. Boost me.”

Sebastian looks up at the aircraft. “Why don’t you get in one of the F1 cars?” he suggests instead.

“I get in F1 cars regularly. Stop being boring and boost me,” she orders standing beneath the wing of the plane. Sebastian sighs and moves towards her. “I’m wearing a skirt,” she grins at him hoping it would be encouragement and his eyes flick down before he smirks.

“Is that permission to perve?”

“Sure, just fucking boost me.”

“Why don’t you just do a flying handstand to get up?” Sebastian suggests as he links his fingers for her after she’s kicked her shoes off.

“You overestimate my gymnastic skills,” Laura mutters as she steps into Sebastian’s hand before he pushes her up and she grabs the wing.

“Don’t break anything!” Sebastian orders as loudly as he dared as he looked up to push her higher. His eyes immediately glued to the view beneath her skirt. “Shame, I was hoping for no underwear.”  A foot deliberately lands on his face and Sebastian darts away before Laura crawls onto the wing.

“You are officially my accomplice now,” she calls down to him as she moves to the cockpit. She grins before climbing in. “What do you think the red button does?”

“Don’t push anything!” Sebastian shouts up at her.

“Do you think it has weapons?” she asks leaning over the side. “You’d make great target practice.” She smiles at him sweetly before settling back and fiddling with the instruments in the cockpit, at least till Sebastian interrupted her playing.

“Get out of the fucking plane Aston. That’s enough.”

Sighing she removes herself. “I didn’t know you were such a responsible individual.”

“I didn’t know you were so reckless,” he retorts.

“Are you going to catch me?” she asks him when she’s sat on the wing.

He stands below her. “No, you get down yourself.”

“Catch me or you’ll be explaining my injuries to Dietrich.”

Sebastian moves closer and Laura hesitates for a moment before she lets herself drop down. But Sebastian catches her easily and she slips down through his arms to land on her feet safely. His arms tighten around her, keeping her against him as he stares at her with such an intense gaze that for a moment her breath catches and she can’t look away from him.

“You want me to help you into a plane?” she asks needing the moment broken.

“I don’t think so Aston,” he smiles.

She wraps her arms around his neck loosely. “Come on, there’s no rules that say we can’t play with the planes.”

Sebastian immediately points at a large sign written in red. “No touching.”

“Oh. Should I go back up and buff away my finger prints?” she asks. Sebastian snorts and Laura twists to see what else she could try out.

“No, Aston,” Sebastian tells her.

“You are such a spoil sport,” she sighs.

“Let’s get back.”

“We could stay here…” Laura murmurs pressing back into Seb and he raises his eyebrows. She fingers his collar. “Play together.”

“Your idea and my idea of playing together Aston are going to be very different.”

Laura grins and frees herself from his arms and he watches as she moves to sit on the front of the Toro Rosso parked under one of the planes. “You want to play here.”

She watches Sebastian lick his lips, eyes changing from bright blue to a darker shade, clearly contemplating the idea as he moves towards her before stopping between her parted thighs. “Get up Aston.”

“I could be serious,” she smiles, and Sebastian raises an eyebrow questioningly. “There’s one race left, maybe I want to take you up on your earlier offer.”

“Really?” Sebastian crosses his arms. “Here? You want me on my knees now?”

“Maybe it’s a fantasy of mine… to get off on an F1 car?”

“I’ll let Jenson know for you, shall I?”

Laura sucks in her breath. “Do you have to do that?”

“Remind you of the truth?” Sebastian asks as he drops to his knees in front of her. “As long as you know what you’re asking from me Aston, I don’t care.” His hands grip her thighs before he yanks her forward to the edge and pushes her legs wider.

Laura’s breath hitched, eyes widening because she wasn’t sure how far to let this go between them. Sebastian hands smooth across the top of her thighs, pushing under her skirt.

“No fighting me at the next race,” he reminds her and presses a kiss to the inside of her knee and she shivers.

“Let’s not have strings attached,” Laura suggests as his fingers creep higher.

His chin rests on her knee and he looks up at her. “And what am I getting out of this?”

“Me?”

Sebastian snorts. “No, we both know I don’t get that.”

“We can trade places after?” That has Sebastian bite at the inside of her thigh before kissing the mark.  “Seb?” she murmurs, hands in his hair as her body lights up at his mouth moving up her leg. Were they doing this? Her head spins, they weren’t doing this, he was just being stupid, testing her limits. She gasps when his lips attach to her leg midway on her upper thigh and he sucks, hard.

“Sebastian!” she cries out, trying to pull his head away but he’s locked on tightly and there’s pain as she yanks at his hair. He pulls back suddenly after a long moment and she shoves him away as they both move to look at the mark he left. “Was that necessary?”

“Completely,” he says getting to his feet before dropping a kiss on her nose. “You explain that one to Jenson. I mean if you’re not friends.”

She was going to murder him.

“Don’t forget your shoes Aston!” he calls back to her as he heads for the doors.

 

*        *        *

 

“What happened to your leg?” Jenson’s fingers trail up her leg and circle her bruise as she stood in the bathroom brushing her teeth. “That’s new.”

Laura leans over and spits out the toothpaste before rinsing her mouth. “Don’t remember. Maybe I hit it trying to climb into a plane,” she tries to shrug it away, her anger immediately flickering back to Sebastian as she tries to bat away Jenson’s hand. “Leave it.”

“It looks like a hickey,” Jenson muses and Laura shoots him a dark look. “So… what were you doing climbing into a plane.”

“I was bored,” she grins crawling to his bed and slipping under the covers. She was tired and wanted to not talk about her trip to Austria. “Come to bed.”

He does, happily, turning off the lights before joining her. “What do you want to do tomorrow?” he asks wrapping his arms around her.

“Anything. Nothing.” She was looking forward to spending a few days with him, no F1 obligations, just them. She closes her eyes, it was going to be nice.

“So, you sure you didn’t let Vettel give you a hickey?” Jenson asks in the dark. He lets out a loud noise when she elbows him hard, really fucking hard. “Fuck Laura,” he groans.

“I hope that hurt,” she snaps trying hard to let her anger swallow her guilt. Anger she knew how to handle. She moves away from him putting space between them in her annoyance at him.

“You know he has a thing for you,” Jenson comments when he has recovered. This time he grabs her hand that moves to whack him. “I’m serious. Sebastian does have a thing for you.”

“This isn’t high school Jenson. What the hell is a ‘thing’?”

She can feel Jenson shrug next to her. “Whatever that means. He likes you, he wants you.”

Laura rolls onto her side to stare at him in the dark, mulling the words in her head. She knew Sebastian wanted her, but she’s not so sure he likes her, let alone has feelings towards her. “I think you’re looking at things too hard.”

“And I think you’re too focused on hating him, so you don’t see the obvious,” Jenson returns, staring back at her.

There’s a beat of silence before she asks. “Do you trust me?”

He touches her cheek. “Yes,” he answers without hesitation. “I don’t trust Sebastian.”

She turns to kiss his palm. “I can say no,” she promises.

“Well yes, but I broke you eventually,” he reminds her with a smile.

“Well, then you don’t have to worry for a few more years,” Laura grins back. “That’s how long it took for you to wear me down.”

Jenson laughs softly and moves to kiss her. “Love you Laura.”

“Love you too,” she whispers.

 

*        *        *

 

“Please tell me you’re going to win this race?” Lillian asks as they wander through the paddock.

Laura doesn’t think her sister had yet forgiven for winning a race she wasn’t at. It’s not her fault that Lillian didn’t come to Brazil, but still… “You do know I try and win them all don’t you?”

“Yes, but I want you to win one that I’m at,” Lillian pouts. “So, win this one.”

Laura smiles at her and salutes. “I’ll get on that.” Though Laura was well aware her winning would be dependent on championship standings between Sebastian and Lewis at the end of the day. She got her win in Brazil, but the championship was close, but as long as Sebastian finished in front of Lewis then he would secure another title. Like he needed more.

 

The last race weekend seems to fly by, almost as if knowing she was looking forward to the end of the season. It wasn’t the break from driving she’d like, but it’s the break from the relentless press and cameras and obligations. It could be exhausting. And Laura was doing her best to deal with questions surrounding Sebastian.

Sebastian and his championship bid. Her win and not using team orders, how she would feel if he lost the championship this weekend because of it. Her feelings on him leaving, as if she hadn’t made that clear since his announcement that he was leaving Red Bull. Or maybe what she wanted was a break from Sebastian and constantly having to answer questions about him. Sometimes she feels like she never gets a break from him – even if she could get her head in order and stop her thoughts drifting to places it shouldn’t, he was always going to haunt her at the next race.

 

Come race day, Sebastian had secured pole, Lewis was second and she was third. It should have been straightforward – Seb races for the flag, she’ll employ a strategy that sees her secure second and it was a one-two for the team, Seb takes home the championship, which she was sure she’d never hear the end of, and season done. All goals achieved. But nothing quite works out for either of them.

They’re both involved in incidents, and surprisingly not with each other, well in a way. She’s clipped by Jenson off the start line, giving her a puncture and a broken wing. Second place now near impossible with an extra pit for tyres on lap 2 and a new front wing. And all that carbon fibre that Jenson decided would make for fun decoration sees Sebastian with a puncture himself two laps later.

It’s two Bulls storming through the field. It must be an entertaining race to watch but it was fucking frustrating when a one-two goes to be a fourth and fifth. Season done. Lewis is champion and Laura is in no way ready for the press onslaught that comes when she faces them post-race.

 

“Laura are you aware that Sebastian lost the championship by seven points?”

“Laura, looking back do you should have engaged team orders in Brazil?”

“Laura Sebastian would be tied with Lewis and be champion on countback if the results had been reversed in Brazil. What are your thoughts on this?”

“Laura, do you feel your win is tainted?”

“Laura have you spoken to Sebastian about his race?”

“Laura –“

“Laura –“

And she’s had enough. She turns and simply stalks out of the press pen. Fuck the press right now and they’re fucking stupid ass questions. She’d give them the finger, but Miles had grabbed her hand and held it tightly as if he had read her thoughts as he followed her out.

 

There’s mostly disbelief. That’s all Sebastian really feels. Disbelief. Championship gone, lost by seven points. So close and yet, it would never be close enough. The celebrations at McLaren could be heard as he moved to get weighed. He doesn’t remove his helmet and finishing in fourth was actually a blessing because he can walk to the garage. He can find comfort in the arms of his team, of his family that had travelled to the final race.

Christian embraces him, murmuring his words of apologies, of his thanks for his years of service. Adrian shaking his hand, Rocky squeezing him so hard he can’t breathe looking like he might cry. Crying about his loss isn’t what any of them need, so he thanks them all, puts on the brave face above all the numbness.

It’s the face he wears when he faces the media. If he pushes through this, makes it to the end of all the seemingly never-ending questions he can just disappear and be alone and… _hurt_. The questions though, as usual swirl around Aston. Always fucking Laura Aston.

“Sebastian, seeing how close the points are in the end, do you blame Laura for your championship loss?”

“Do you think Laura should be a better team player?”

“Is Laura’s win in Brazil tainted?”

He could throw her under the bus. Hell, she threw him under it every chance she got it. Maybe the season has finally worn him out because he can’t find the energy to right now. He tries to dodge the questions where he can, answering the questions vaguely or twisting his answers back to this weekend and dismissing the previous race. He can’t wait to return to the shelter of the Red Bull motorhome the moment he’s done.

Inside his eyes fall on his teammate, sitting a table looking almost as glum as he felt, her brother leaning over and talking in her ear. His gaze catches hers and he’s surprised at the flash of guilt in her eyes before she looks away. Aston having regrets? Never. He must have imagined it.

“Sebastian.” Miles was in front of him, offering him his hand and Sebastian shakes it. “Sorry it didn’t work out. But all the best for next year.”

He manages a tiny smile. “Thanks.”

He can’t stop his gaze shifting back to Miles’s sister who was watching them, eyes definitely holding a sorrowful expression. He has to resist going over and telling her it was okay. It was okay because the season was done. The championship was done. It was all over and done with. Even they were done in regard to being teammates. But it wasn’t the time, as he spies his father waving him over - and definitely not the place. So, he walks passed her without a word.

 

*        *        *

 

There was nothing that was going to lift Laura’s spirits tonight. She’d been hammered by the press at the circuit. She’s surprised no one in the team had said anything to her directly about the race and the championship result. She wasn’t going to check her social media accounts anytime soon, not unless she felt like slitting her wrists. God, why did she care? Why did she feel so guilty? It was one damn win, one that she deserved and had legitimately been faster, it shouldn’t matter. It only mattered because it was one race ago and could be remembered. No one was off asking Dan these fucking questions from his earlier wins in the season. There was nothing that she could do to shake her head from the ever-circling cloud of thoughts it was stuck in.

“Laura.” Lillian had come over to where she was standing away from the celebrating McLaren team, wrapping her arms around her and pushing her head into hers. “Please don’t be a picture of misery.”

Laura reaches up to squeeze her arm. “I’m fine,” she promises. “I think I need an early night.” Celebrating anything was not what she wanted, and she’d already given her congratulations to Lewis before he’d been swept up and away on his championship high.

“Don’t let them tear you down. Your win was yours. And Sebastian made plenty of his own mistakes this season. So, don’t punish yourself.”

Her face creases into a frown. “Why didn’t he yell at me?”

Lillian lifts her face to look at her sister. “Who?”

“Sebastian. Why didn’t he yell at me after the race? He should have gone off at me. He should have blamed me. Been awful to me. That’s what I’d have done. He said nothing. Why would he say nothing?” God, the whole thing was eating at her so badly.

“I don’t know,” Lillian shrugs letting her go. “Maybe he’s a bigger person?”

Laura’s eyes flash angrily. “He is _not_ the bigger person.” Now annoyed she decided she has had enough. “I’m going to call it a night. Where did Miles go?”

Lillian waves behind her. “He was talking to Molly before. I’ll tell him you went away to sulk.”

Laura pinches her side at the comment before she goes to find Jenson. He squeezes her tightly and tells her he’ll come find her later tonight and not to beat herself up. She promises she isn’t, and Jenson kisses the side of her head quickly before she heads back to her hotel.

 

She was tired and depressingly sober as she reached for the button to the lift. After tonight she was pleased that this season had finally reached its conclusion. Nothing had gone as planned, from her injured knee to a relationship with her best friend she was still nervous about and having to deal with a teammate that could make her blood boil just as easily as he could turn her on. It was all enough to make her head spin and at least after tonight she’ll only have Jenson to worry about and she was convinced that would be the least complicated.

Stepping inside the lift she sighs and stretches as the door slid closed, her eyes closing for a moment as she falls against the side, exhaustion having very much set in. The doors ding open again though and her eyes snap open and her face takes on a startled expression as Sebastian steps into join her.

He pushes the highlighted button she’d already touched and then leans on the opposite wall his eyes boring into hers making her swallow. She refuses to deal with stony silence and with a voice sounding shaky to her own ears she says, “I won’t apologise.” She makes a small noise as he pushes himself towards her till he was standing inches front of her, and her eyes widen and there’s a flicker of fear, which he sees because he gives her a tiny smile.

“I never expected one,” he murmurs, his hand reaching for hers. Her hand flinches when his fingers touch hers but then the pad of his thumb is circling and brushing her knuckles. The touch is light and gentle something she’d not come to expect from him and it sets off a storm of conflicting emotions in her. “You know they were baiting us, don’t you? Next year will be better,” he tells her softly.

“Why aren’t you mad?” She licks her lips trying to shrink further into the wall of the lift too aware of how close he was, she could feel the heat from him. And she was most positive that the lift must have stopped because this might possibly be the longest ride in history.

A smile spreads across his face as he leans forward to whisper, “We’re not teammates anymore.” She turns her head to ask how that was relevant, but the question dies when the little space between them begins to disappear – clearly, he doesn’t want to kill her.

The small noise she makes is swallowed when he pushes his lips to hers and there’s instant relief. Relief he didn’t hate her after their race, relief that he didn’t blame her – maybe she needed that more than she realised as she moves to kiss him back her arms wrapping around her neck as his arms slip around her waist and pull her closer, hard against him.

They keep kissing, harder, deeper, tongues pressing, fighting the other in a dance they’d both been wrapped up in before. She wants more, rising to her toes trying to take it all as his arms tighten around her, doing nothing but encouraging her and this. So, she was weak, so she couldn’t help herself, she didn’t care, not in this moment All she wanted was for the annoying buzz that had taken up residence in the back of her brain to shut up. It was as if there was a reason why she shouldn’t enjoy this, and a reason why she needed to stop. But she didn’t care about the buzz; she wished it would go away as her fingers slide into Seb’s hair.

It’s Seb that breaks the kiss and she makes an embarrassing little whine when he tears his lips from hers, both breathing hard. His head turns to look at the buttons on the lift panel. She was surprised to see that most of the floors were lit up and he looks at her a little embarrassed shrugging. “I was looking for the stop button.” She grins and licks her lips which sees Seb mutter, “Fuck it.”

And then they were kissing again, this time hands are not still, they slide and grope over clothing, searching skin as they wrap back around each other, mouths fused and never parting. And all the while the lift doors ding open and closed around them on random floors as they stumble around the lift taking turns to press the other against walls both wanting control, neither relenting it to the other for too long.

“Laura…” he breathes out her name as he pushes himself back, his hands falling to either side of her head as she struggles to get her breath back. She thinks it’s the first time he had ever called her that, it was always Aston. It has her stomach twist with heat she wants to pull him back, continue where they left off, but she was startled to see the lift was about to open in the hotel lobby and she hurriedly pushes him back. His startled expression is quickly removed when he realises, and Laura smooths her hair as they’re joined by an older couple who stand between them.

She watches Seb reselect their floor before they stand opposite the other, in silence, eyes fixed to each other. Laura is sure that it was insanity that had taken a hold of her moments earlier. Never before had she been so careless, and panics filters in as she wonders who may have seen them on other floors when she and Seb were focused on each other.

The moment the doors open on their floor, she takes her opportunity to flee, but he’s right with her. “Aston.” His hand catches her wrist before she could move past him when they’ve stepped out. They both stare at the lift, waiting for the doors to slide closed before she looks back at Seb to find his eyes boring into her. “Laura.” He tries again as he tugs on her wrist to pull her closer and again the sound of her name has her head swirl. “Congratulations on your win last race.”

The words are like someone shoved her in her chest, left her winded. There’s an overwhelming rush to cry because he didn’t congratulate her in Brazil and now… he does it _now?_ And he sounds fucking genuine. With her free hand she goes to punch him, but he yanks her forward pulling her off balance and against him. “Don’t –“

But he’s holding her to him with one arm, the other hand drags his thumb against her temple. “Have dinner with me Laura.” While he smiles at her, there’s no missing the exhaustion in his features.

The world was doing that slowed time thing again. Her face tilts towards his hand even though she’d grabbed it to pull away. But she doesn’t, she only holds it tightly.

Her eyes search his and as his face draws nearer her eyes slip closed. His lips only sweep past hers in a light brush. “I’m meant to have dinner with my parents.” His lips push into her jaw and her fingers bury in his hair, holding his face to hers. “I’ll cancel.” His lips find a spot near her ear. “Have dinner with me Laura,” he repeats his earlier request. “Just you and me. No games.”

There’s the lightest scrap of teeth and she shivers tugging his lips back to hers as her head was once more buzzing loudly like it was trying to remind her of something as Sebastian obeyed her silent request and kissed her again. But it’s not like before, it’s soft and tentative as her lips cling to his.

The ding that the lift was about to open has them quickly break apart and the moment she’s untangled herself from Sebastian that buzz finally has a voice, clear and screaming at her. _What about Jenson?_ She swallows and a whole different world of guilt consumes her, like a bucket of ice was dropped on her as Sebastian looks at her expectantly.

Have dinner with Sebastian? Forget the year and start again? They let it all go…

“Laura – “

“No.” She cuts him off because every time he said her name she felt like her chest was being strangled. She backs away from him. “No Sebastian. Just no.” She doesn’t care about the fact she sounds panicked, she was panicking. This wasn’t happening. This didn’t happen.

He stares at her as she continues to put space between them. “Then we really are done,” he tells her, his face becoming unreadable.

Laura watches as Sebastian then turns on his heel and to his room without another word. She sucks in deep breaths, suddenly not sure she knows how to breathe, because she’s not sure what had just happened.

In her room she leans on the door pressing it closed, a sharp lump in her throat that won’t go away. She kicks off her shoes and moves through her suite to the bed and she sits on the edge. Her heart was pounding. What was wrong with her? How could she throw caution to the wind like that? Why did she even go near him to start with? Tears burn behind her eyes and she slides off the edge of the bed to sit on the floor, heels of her palms pushing into her eyes to stop her tears.

She wasn’t going to shed one tear over Sebastian. She wasn’t going to be upset about Sebastian. She didn’t love Sebastian. She loved Jenson. She wanted Jenson. The only thing she felt for Sebastian was hate and wanting him wasn’t love, it wasn’t enough – it wasn’t enough for anything.

The threat of tears passes, and she hugs her knees tightly after drawing them up. It had taken her over two years to move things along with Jenson, but with Sebastian it wasn’t like that. It was like there was nothing to fear with Sebastian – their relationship couldn’t possibly deteriorate. But with Jenson… she had so much to lose. And she wasn’t ready to let that go, to let him go. Not for Sebastian.

She hated this year. She wanted this year to be over. And angry, and upset, and frustrated in so many ways she tips her head back and screams.

 

*        *        *

 

Laura is standing on Jenson’s balcony at his residence in Monaco, Lillian and Miles with her as they clung to flutes of champagne. Tonight, they were headed out with Jenson to celebrate the New Year, some fancy party in the principality. But before they all disappeared to enjoy the evening they were taking a moment together.

“To the new year,” Miles smiles.

“Yes, a new year with Ferrari,” Lillian adds, and Laura rolls her eyes because her sister reminding her of that every moment was starting to get on her nerves.

“To new relationships,” Miles says after a moment. Laura has to bite her lip to enquire because her brother was certainly seeing someone, but he hadn’t shared that with her and she wasn’t going to go all Lillian on his ass and demand answers, he’d tell her when he was ready.

“Lau?” Lillian is looking at her. “What do you want?”

Laura blinks and her head goes to the one place it shouldn’t – Sebastian Vettel. It seemed stuck on one channel since Abu Dhabi, stuck on their moment together, on his offer. It burned. And does it matter what she wanted? She looks up to see Jenson joining them and she smiles when he moves behind her, arms around her middle. She had what she wanted. Right? She was meant to be happy now. She shakes her head to clear it from her muddled thoughts.

“To my championship next year,” she finally says. “Or at least a lot more fucking wins.”

Their glasses clink together, and they all take a sip – except for Laura who downs the entire thing. She turns to Jenson and kisses him lightly. “Okay, we’re ready,” she tells him. He grins at her, hand finding hers as he leads them out. And Laura squeezes his fingers tightly because she was determined to hang on to the one thing she had wanted for so long and she was not giving it up for anything – not even for Sebastian Vettel.

 

 

It’s New Years and Sebastian had decided for once to not spend it with family, instead he had taken up Kimi’s offer of joining him and his celebrations. He hadn’t wanted to be alone with his thoughts, he hadn’t wanted time to think and looking around at the guests he gives in as he takes the drink Kimi offers.

“Okay,” he tells him taking a large mouthful.

Kimi raises his eyebrows. “Okay what?”

“Okay, set me up.” Kimi had been pestering him about dating, well more like having a lot of sex since his breakup. And no, he didn’t want a relationship, but at least he could have a lot of sex. A lot of sex would be a good distraction.

“Are you serious?” Kimi looked delighted. “Blondes or brunettes?” he asks already looking around for targets.

Sebastian closes his eyes and sees Laura, blonde hair, loose and long, looking at him breathless in that lift. His lips thin, eyes snapping back open before looks at Kimi hard. “Brunette.” He wanted someone that didn’t remind him of Aston and he wanted someone that wouldn’t burn him either. He already had his new year resolution – he was done with Laura Aston. Next year he wasn’t only not saying one word to her, he wasn’t even going to look in her direction.

And with that he forces a smile at the girl that Kimi was introducing him to. He was moving on.

 

*        *        *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all she wrote folks - KIDDING! I am currently working on finalising the next year but that will be a bit before I get around to finishing up to start posting.
> 
> If you are interested I can add a chapter to this of tidbits for Year 2 - mini spoilers without spoiling too much. Let me know if you want me to do that to tide you over in the meantime. More than happy.
> 
> And I know I have said it before, but thank you to everyone that left kudos or comments. Without that I would have never finished this or ended up posting it all. So thank you and much love to all have kept coming back to read.


	12. All the little things (Year 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What follows below is some tidbits I have taken from the 50k I have written to date from the next part.
> 
> Finding teasers that don't spoil anything was actually harder than I thought.
> 
> Only read if you want to know something about year 2 - but really the below doesn't give away much.

“She’s not a bad person Laura,” Miles tells her. “And no one here is suggesting that we all love Sebastian Vettel. You’ve made it clear none us can support him.”

“You’ll just work for his team and sleep with his staff.”

 

 

Jenson stare at her stunned rubbing his jaw as she cradles her hand. She was furious, he’d seen her mad before but not like this. He wanted to push the Vettel button more but he knew he was wrong the moment her hand slammed into his jaw. Apologising though… she wasn’t getting that. Because why the hell would she not talking to him about this? How can she possibly think it’s okay to not talk to him on this?

 

 

“Why is Jenson so pissed at me? You think he’d actually want to be best mates and join my I hate Aston club that I’m president of.” That has her snort before she grins at him, only Sebastian comes to a sudden halt, realisation hitting him, and he’s smile gone. “Oh my god, you told him.” He looked pissed, “You told him about Spain,” he hisses his accusation.

 

 

Lillian was looking between Sebastian and Laura with wide eyes as they faced each other with resolute expressions. “No Laura. No! I forbid you.”

“Do we have a deal?” Sebastian asks holding out his hand to her as Kimi might actually look delighted with his suggestion.

Lillian was within an inch of smacking that look off his face.

Laura grasps Sebastian’s hand firmly. “Deal.”

Lillian drags her fingers through her hair as they confirmed their agreement. This could only end badly.

 

 

“Huh. Okay.” Kimi’s face takes on a slow look of realisation. “Makes sense.”

And Sebastian’s stomach drops because Kimi was now smirking at him.

“Don’t,” he pleads.

“You’re in love with her.” 

 

 

Sebastian throws open the door to his suite. Seeing Laura standing there, face with a dark expression was hardly a surprise. He rests his hands on each side of the door blocking her from barging in. “Aston,” he says voice low. “Just because it’s our anniversary, doesn’t mean we celebrate the same way as last year.”

 

 

“Do you want me to love you?”

 

 

Licking her lips she finds her voice, and in an eerily calm tone, gaze square on her brother she says, “I hate you for this. I will _always_ hate you for this. Stay away from me.”

“Lau…” Miles’ voice breaks and he reaches for her but she simply steps back.

“You’re fired.”

 

 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Molly interrupts them, now looking furious. “Does Miles know? Lillian? Anyone?”

“Uh no…”

“Jenson knows,” Sebastian mutters under his breath only for Laura to turn and shove him hard.

 

 

“Seb, you’re being an idiot. Laura is being an idiot. Stop being idiots.”

“I don’t want to stop,” he tells her quietly pulling her hands down.

“Idiot. You _are_ in love with her.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think :)

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if you like this and want me to continue to posting more.


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